- News
Case discussion: Suspected plagiarism
…intentionally used another’s methods and discussion (IP) to generate an easy publication. Every experienced editor knows that some new authors are confused by the publication process and are not mentored properly on how to write for publication, so if the editor suspects that the author’s plagiarism may have arisen from a lack of knowledge or understanding, it is common for an editor to prefer educational… - Case
Unusually frequent submission of articles by a single author
…a responsibility to its students and they need to ensure that students are sufficiently supported. So the editor should consider contacting someone in this role at the author’s university. However, that still leaves the dilemma of the unprocessed articles and what to do with them. The Forum advised that the editor needs to be certain that the articles are all from the author and that he takes… - Case
Author of rejected letter blames global bias against his message and undisclosed conflicts of interest
…The corresponding author of the paper explained that the same person had attacked every single article from his group for about 5 years, that they had responded to the critics adequately in the past and declined doing so again in this instance. He portrayed the letter as a disingenuous and fraudulent commentary and asked that we do not publish the letter, which in his view would be a disservice to… - Seminars and webinars
Webinar 2020: Understanding text recycling
…publisher as per the Copyright Agreement. So does the law allow the publishers to prepare the contracts in such a way wherein all the rights are transferred to them whereas the authors have to let go of their own fair use rights? I understand that it is important for the publishers to own and control the content which is being published with them, as that helps in maintaining the quality checks associated… - Seminars and webinars
COPE webinar: Enhancing partnerships of institutions and journals
…shared. How can we request universities to share more information about how they came to decisions because journals are often left to deal with the author who did not get credit. Any recommendations? Is there any way organisations such as COPE can ask the major publishers to implement a standard approach around retractions so that self-reported article retractions are clearly visible? This may… - News
Case discussion: Editor manipulation of impact factor
…previous year’s or two years of articles would contribute to the score in the following year. As illustrated in case 04-36, it is doubly bad practice to pretend to review the field but mention only the same journal’s content from recent years so as to raise the… - News
In the news: February Digest
…integrity! Dr. Frances Arnold, winner of half of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, tweeted that her research team had retracted a 2019 paper because "the work has not been reproducible". She wrote, "It is painful to admit, but important to do so. I apologize to all. I was a bit busy when this was submitted and did not do my job well". This type of transparency and commitment to the integrity of the… - Forum discussion topics
What does peer review mean in the arts, humanities and social sciences?
…sometimes the final paper have to be approved by the indigenous IRB. This is true in Australia, New Zealand and Hawaii. Also, the Navajo in the US have a native indigenous IRB. So, the research needs to be approved by the university IRB and by the indigenous IRB. Due diligence for editors is to ensure that any appropriate IRBs, and not just the research IRB, but it could be a community IRB, an indigenous… - News
A vision for a more trans-inclusive publishing world: guest article
…principle is one of the most difficult to implement, due in part to a lack of existing infrastructures for such changes. Names pervade our digital infrastructures, in often unanticipatable ways. Each of the authors of this document has had to contend with the “digital ghost” of their previous identity to varying degrees, and so the practical difficulties of a comprehensive name change loom large… - News
In the news: April 2020
…publish open access at no extra cost; their universities will pay the publisher based on the number of articles published – the so-called “publish and read” model – rather than paying subscriptions for access. - News
Citations: Link, Locate, Discover, Connect
…primarily to facilitate automated linking for indexing and online navigation. As with most critical systems, some level of redundancy is helpful so that small errors do not invalidate the reference, or obscure its intended target. An author name, item title and source title can assist a human reader in finding the referenced paper in the absence of a machine-readable DOI. Turning… - News
In the news: May 2020
…an Open Data Badge to some authors if they agreed to share their data and did not do so for other authors. There was no difference in the low rates of data sharing in either group. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32269804 Training The UK Research Integrity Office (UKRIO) offers… Common ethical and editorial dilemmas of author misconduct: how should we respond?
…so the institution should be informed. If it's published, both journals will have to publish a notice of duplicate publication. Authorship issues These are very difficult to deal with. If an author has already submitted it elsewhere, it should not be submitted to another journal until a definitive accept or reject decision has been…- News
In the news: April Digest
…in reporting the results of trials and experiments so that we can learn as much from them as possible—and as fast as possible https://reimaginereview.asapbio.org/launching-a-registry-of-peer-review-experiments/ Streamlining Publication TRANsparency in Scholarly… - News
In the news: October Digest
…a #manel. Inclusion is important--but so is integration. Having women speakers as tokens to check a box doesn't really advance the importance of involving multiple viewpoints and areas of expertise in research meetings. As Angeline Pendergrass, an atmospheric scientist at the US National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, is quoted in the paper, it's not enough to invite women, you should "listen… - News
Case discussion: self-plagiarism and suspected salami publishing
…shared by multiple authors) and whether the authors of earlier and later works are identical. In the case under discussion, the authors were not identical, so it could be argued that without the relevant permissions, the new author/s in paper B committed plagiarism of the affected passages. Another COPE Core Practice is relevant to the issues in this case and to avoiding disputes in the future,… - News
Case discussion: repeated complaints about a review
…flowcharts. The journal needs to address all valid concerns from a reader, and it would be more convenient to deal with all concerns at once. The journal and authors would also need to discuss if so-called errors really are errors. Distinctions should be made between fixable mistakes in a paper; alternative viewpoints; and ongoing scholarly progress and debate where previous findings are reinterpreted or… Facilitation and Integrity FAQ
…not, COPE may raise the matter to the attention of the publisher so that they are aware, but the subcommittee cannot review the matter under the Facilitation and Integrity framework. Back to top My issue of concern relates to a society owned journal. Is it in scope for the Facilitation and Integrity subcommittee? If the…- News
Case discussion: gift authorship
…criteria in more than a quarter of their papers. For journals/groups using the ICMJE guidelines (or other industry-recognised publishing guidelines), more work is needed to increase awareness of and compliance with authorship criteria so as to promote ethical authorship practices. Indeed, lack of awareness of ICMJE authorship criteria was among the factors that - News
Case Discussion: Lack of trial registration leads to new concerns about study conduct and ethical review/approval
…registered.” Although registration of observational study types (eg, cohort, case-control, and cross-sectional studies) is currently not compulsory, it is encouraged so as to maximise transparency and reproducibility. Along with trial registration, complete and transparent reporting is important, and deficiencies in reporting should have been addressed in this case. Advice on publishing trials and…