- Case
Possible breach of reviewer confidentiality
…how and why. Within a few hours, both reviewers replied that they kept the paper confidential and did not share it with anyone else. We take their assertions as valid and true, as we do with so many other statements by authors and reviewers. I informed the authors about the outcome of my investigation. I also suggested that if they still think that a reviewer may have broken confidentiality,… - Case
Journal refuses to correct the record
…editor is planning on publishing this notice to see if that will make them respond and formally retract the article. The Forum agreed that there was not a lot else the editor could do but did suggest writing an editorial on this issue.… - 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
Suspected fabrication of data
…without this we could no longer consider the paper. The line went dead. What should we do next?… - Forum discussion topics
COPE Forum 11 September 2012: Publishing offensive material
The topic for discussion at this Forum was ‘Publishing offensive material’. Specifically, what constitutes bad taste, indecency or obscenity? How do you deal with expletives (as part of interviews or transcripts)? Where is the line between censorship and freedom of expression? - Case
A paper describing a case of possible medical negligence
…this was negligence, and the question for the journal is whether any action should be taken. COPE has made it clear that editors have a duty to act on information about research misconduct. Do editors also have an obligation to act when papers describe clinical misconduct?… - Case
Ethics approval for audit 1
A group in a developing country decided to do a survey of maternal mortality in relation to the available local facilities in the various regions of their country. They set up a small committee to look at the incidence and causes. They obtained the permission of the local authorities, including the local elders, community leaders, and local health care providers, to scrutinise records and… - Case
Would the loss of a clinical licence in one country impact on the ability to do clinical work in another?
The associate editor of journal X identified author Y on a submission paper as someone who had lost their license to practice due to malpractice. As part of the settlement, author Y had agreed to refrain from providing services to patients. Author Y now resides on a different continent, and the study presented in the submission was apparently carried out in in this continent. There is no mentio… - Case
Possible malpractice revealed in a case report
We received a case report describing the diagnosis and treatment of a middle-aged woman who presented to a gastroenterology service in England with weight loss and a right iliac fossa mass. The authors did a barium swallow, duodenal and gastric biopsies, and diagnosed Crohn’s disease by the radiological appearances on follow-through. They did not do a colonoscopy, or biopsy the mass in the… - Forum discussion topics
Predatory publishing: next steps and where do we go from here?
…content, submit to the journal, or reference articles published there). The tool will be disseminated for free and will be open for others to build upon. This tool will help to safeguard against interactions with low quality journals.” Back to top Comments from the Forum, 15 December 2020 Note, comments do not imply formal COPE advice or consensus - Case
Deception in submitting manuscript for publication
…impression that you had anything to do with the sending of these emails, or were even aware of them. If any of these people choose to respond, it will be directly to you, and I will never see the responses unless you at some point forward them to me.” I did hear from several people with the assumption that I had invited them to review the manuscript. I understand that I could ignore these reviews.… - Case
Ethical approval and fabrication of results
…retrospectively looked at some more patients to make the number up to 50. He said that he did not think retrospective case studies had to be approved by a review board. The webpage for the specialist research society cannot be located. Do retrospective case studies require ethical approval? Can we ask the authors for proof of ethics approval for their previous study of 15… - Case
Reviewer concerns about transparency of peer review process
Our journal uses an internally transparent process where throughout the editor or peer review process, authors, editors and reviewers are all aware of the identities of who is involved. Reviewers are also told—when initially solicited to do a peer review—that they will be named on the final article manuscript as a reviewer. Prior to publication, the pre-print version of a text is sent to… - Event
Research integrity strategy workshop
Jigisha Patel, an independent research integrity specialist, is running a workshop that explores the hidden barriers and the practicalities of managing research misconduct. The workshop will be useful for journals and publishers that: Do not have a formal strategy to manage and prevent research misconduct and would like to know where to start. Would like to… - Seminars and webinars
North American Seminar 2019: In the aftermath of authorship violations in philosophy
…publishers can do to dis-incentivise academic plagiarism. … - News
Identifying fake journals
…Statement from COPE Officers COPE believes that authors and institutions should treat lists of predatory (or fake) journals with the same degree of scrutiny as they do with the journals themselves. Lists that are not transparent about criteria used should not be relied on. Moreover, such lists may perpetuate systemic bias and include journals with limited resources but which are… - Case
Redundant publication?
…of the cohort discussed in journal B. In fact, they make only passing reference to that paper, but do not discuss its relation to the paper they are submitting to journal A. The authors did not supply a copy of the journal B paper when submitting the journal A paper. What should we do now?… - Case
A falling out
…approval (and we do not do this routinely in our department as it is usually the responsibility of the corresponding author). I am very concerned that you have sent off a letter to the journal without the courtesy of letting us see it beforehand. This is most unusual behaviour and can only have a damaging effect. The erratum is curious as these changes should have been made in the original manuscript.”… FORUM DISCUSSION TOPIC: comments please
…published articles?• Could researchers post a preprint that has been rejected from a journal?• Do preprint servers address publication bias?• Do preprint servers increase or decrease transparency?• Who is responsible for checking if appropriate permissions have been received for the data and figures in a preprint?• What if there is an authorship dispute on a preprint?- Case
“Research” without ethics committee approval
…editors also think that ethics committee approval should have been gained. The authors disagree. What should the editors do now?…