- News
Peer review resources
…src="/files/u7140/screenshot_2021-09-16_at_21.16.21.png" style="width:100%" /> To narrow your search by the type of guidance you want, filter by ‘resource type’. COPE produces a variety of resource types: Guidelines COPE Guidelines are formal COPE policy and are intended to advise editors and publishers on expected publication ethics practices. Discussion documents… - Case
Is it duplicate publication when the first study is referenced in the second paper?
…the abstract, methods, and discussion of the two papers are identical. The main difference is that paper B has four more patients in the study group and in Journal A all patients are referred as being 16 years old. In Journal B, the authors mention that the treatment dose was lowered for children but do not identify how many of the study group were 16 years old. The figures in the two articles have… - Event
COPE Forum: September 2023
…COPE Forum Do you have a publication ethics case you'd like to bring to the COPE Forum for discussion and advice? Submit a case The deadline to submit a case for this Forum is: Thursday 24 August 2023. Forum agenda On Thursday 7 September 2023 the COPE Forum will be held at 16:00-17:30 (BST / UTC+1) 1. Update on… - News
In the news: August
…16.8.19 Research Ethics The University of Central Lancashire joins the University of Cape Town to adopt a code of conduct to stamp out “ethics dumping”, in which international research takes advantage of the lack of awareness or regulation in some poorer countries to conduct work. Examples include high risk medical research studies for which participants have experienced a… Publication and research ethics related to geopolitical issues
…Russian-authored papers and to make their content and resources available both in the Ukraine and in Russia. 10 March 2022 European Commission suspends cooperation with Russia on research and innovation, 7 March 2022 ALPSP statement:- Webform
COPE authorship workshop 24 February 2021
…href="https://publicationethics.org/news/cope-authorship-workshop-2020">authorship workshop event page has details of the workshop format and Cases that will be covered. Alternative date This authorship workshop is also being held on 10 February 2021, 15:00 - 16:30 AM (GMT). You may only attend one of the dates. 10 February workshop is now full Your privacy When you register, COPE will collect your personal details… - Case
Undeclared conflicts of interest and potential author dispute over signed letter for publication
A letter was published that provides guidance on prescribing a particular drug in children. There are anxieties about the use of this drug in children, and sometime back a letter from essentially the same group on the same subject was published in the same journal. The electronic version of this original letter included a conflict of interest statement, but the paper edition did not. This was a… - Case
Data fabrication in a rejected manuscript
An author submitted two manuscripts to our journal and the data were clearly fabricated, which was confirmed when we examined the original patient data files. The lead author admitted that they had only recruited a few patients and fabricated all of the remaining data and said that the co-authors had done this without their knowledge. We reported this to the institution, who conducted an… - Webform
COPE integrity workshop 2021
…Facilitation and Integrity at COPE: prevention, education and best practices in publication ethics 21 April 2021, online workshop, COPE members only 16:00-17:30 British Summer Time (UTC + 1) Find out what time this is in your country Resources and further reading
…inherit; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" title="Journal of Medical Ethics"> J Med Ethics 2011;37:567-570 doi:10.1136/jme.2010.040964http…- Case
Ethics approval for audit 2
A group in a developed country performed an audit of pregnancy and its outcome in a group of 250 women with congenital heart disease. There were four maternal deaths of women in the series. It was decided to write up the audit. The paper reports aggregated statistics classified by diagnosis, but also contains a brief account of the factors associated with the four deaths (an account of one of t… Cookie policy
…each page how you got to the site what you click on while you’re here This data is anonymous and does not contain personal information, such as IP address. COPE Privacy policy and questions Please ensure you have also read the COPE privacy policy to understand how…- Case
Submission of article by ghost author
…repercussions for the true author. The editor could also mention that the true author remains free to publish elsewhere and that they were not involved. Another option is for the journal to consider complete removal of the paper, recognising that the true author had not given permission for publication in the journal or for the use of data/content/IP. Furthermore, they could be harmed either… - Event
COPE Forum: September 2022
…cases. Submit a case to COPE Forum Do you have a publication ethics case you'd like to bring to the COPE Forum for discussion and advice? Submit a case The deadline to submit a case for this Forum is: Tuesday 13 September 2022. Forum agenda On 27 September 2022 the COPE Forum will be held at 16:00-17:30pm (BST… - Case
Multiple redundant submissions from the same author
An author submitted a redundant publication to one of our journals. After reviewing the report from the anti-plagiarism software, we followed the COPE flowchart up to and including contacting the author's institution. We have not received a response from the author or the author's institution. Shortly afterwards, the same author submitted a (different) redundant publication to one of our other… - Case
Parental consent for participants
…obtained. One view was that parents should have been informed for the younger aged participants (15 and 16 year olds). However, another view was that the benefits outweigh the risks, and that if the parents had been informed, that may have prevented the participants taking part in the study. The age of consent varies widely in different countries. If participants are over the age of consent for that… - Case
Request by organisation to retract article and publish expression of concern
A group of unspecified members of an organisation have written an expression of concern (letter via email) to the editors wherein they request that an article previously published in the journal be retracted since they believe it is biased and inaccurate about regulation details within the organisation. They are further requesting that their letter be published in the journal. The editor… - Case
Developing novel approaches to improve the assessment of absolute risk among patients with cardiovascular disease
The possibility of dual publication of two papers with almost identical titles and an identical list of authors emerged in the course of appointing a short-listing panel for an NHS award. The potential duplication was spotted in the publications list of an applicant for the award, who was not the first author on either paper. The editor of Journal A, in which one of the papers was in press, was… - News
In the news: June 2021
Each month, COPE Council members find and share publication ethics news. This month the news includes articles on intellectual property, preprints, peer review, and more. Data and reproducibility The Food and Drug Administration in the USA informed Accleron Pharma that… - Case
Paper published that is a verbatim copy of another published one by another author
…the references, he had found that the paper was a carbon copy of an already published article. Having realised that the author and the same graduate student had already published a paper in our journal a year before, we took the time to search the literature for any IP violation from the first paper. We discovered that the paper already published in our journal was a verbatim (not a single word or…