- Case
Dual submission, salami slicing, redundant publication, or all three?
Editor A wrote to editor B, indicating that one of the reviewers of a paper submitted to Journal A contained material that had been submitted at about the same time to Journal B. Editor A requested a copy of the paper submitted to Journal B. Editor B responded, confirming that the paper in question had been submitted to Journal B (submission date two weeks earlier than the paper submitted to Jo… - Case
Author accused of stealing research and publishing under their name
We received a letter from a third party, accusing author A of putting his/her name against an article, published in our journal, when the research itself belongs to author A's student. Our journal is a fully English language publication and the accusing third party and author A are from a non-English speaking country, as is the student (assumedly). The accusing third party forwarded the… - Case
Withdrawing from authorship
A journal published a paper that is now under investigation by the host institution for misconduct. All authors signed that they agreed authorship and took responsibility for the content of the paper. After the investigations started, an author asked to be removed from authorship. Questions for the COPE Forum• What should the journal do in this situation? • Should th… - Case
Potential figure manipulation with corresponding author uncontactable
A reader contacted the journal to raise concerns about a paper containing a potentially manipulated figure. The editor-in-chief agreed with the assessment that the figure had been manipulated and attempted to contact the corresponding author, without response. Following further contact with the co-authors and institution, it was established that the corresponding author had retired after public… - Case
Unhelpful institution report
An allegation of data fraud was not satisfactorily resolved by correspondence with the authors. We then went to the lead institution and asked for an investigation. Within 10 days we had a report clearing the authors, but interestingly using some of the exact same phrases the authors used in their responses to us. We felt that the report was too superficial and approached the other institution… - Case
Victim of article theft wants correction to list their name, not retraction
Author A contacted us claiming that an article published in the journal recently by author B was stolen from an article author A had earlier submitted to two different publishers, publisher A in 2016 and publisher B in 2017. Author A provided the PDFs of the manuscripts they had submitted to those other publishers. The version submitted to us 2018 by author B was very similar to that submitted… - Case
Guest editors for single articles
A COPE member has noted instances of journals contacting individuals - who are not on their editorial board - to request that they act as guest editor for a single manuscript. The invitation makes it clear that they are being asked to recruit reviewers and to make the editorial decision. This practice includes instances where the invitee has had no prior contact with the journal. C… - Case
Author refusal to sign an ethics form
A journal has received a submission which is based on patient data (CT scan images). The data have been found to have been taken from an open-source repository. The authors are refusing to sign an Ethics Approval and Consent for Authors form. Questions for the Forum Is a signature in these cases compulsory? How would the Forum recommend we hand… - News
In the news: November Digest
…publishing choices. https://thinkchecksubmit.org/2019/10/17/think-check-submit-looks-forward-to-collaboration-on-new-research-programme/ Allegations of misconduct An investigation by King’s College London has found 26 of… - Case
Service evaluation as research in a controversial area of medicine
We received an email from a reader relating to the ethics statement in a research article published in 2011. The article presented data collected at a clinic relating to a controversial area in medicine. The ethics statement in the article indicates that, in accordance with regional guidelines, the research ethics committee deemed that the study was a service evaluation and formal ethical revie… - News
In the news: December Digest
…-we-choose-to-align-open-access-to-research-with-geo-political-borders-we-negate-the-moral-value-of-open-access/ A 2016 survey with a 17% response rate (507 of 3000) researchers in the Global South from the AuthorAID network explored their attitudes and experiences with open access publishing. About 40% noted limited or no access to academic literature. 89% always use Google to search for literature. 17% had deposited research into institutional repositories. 70% thought that OA research was useful or… - News
Data and reproducibility focus
…standardized reporting guidelines to ensure that studies can be replicated. Data sharing policies are one area of - Event
COPE Lightning Talk: Text recycling in research writing
17 April 2024, 13:00-14:00 BST / UTC+1 COPE Members only Clarifying the legalities for authors and editors Over the past six years, the Text Recycling Research Project has conducted empirical studies to better understand text recycling in the research context and used what they’ve learned to develop… - News
New: Chinese resources
…Chinese COPE resources We have new Chinese translations of COPE resources to add to our existing translated material. eLearning module: Introduction to Publication Ethics Guidelines: - News
Letter from the COPE Chair: February 2021
…on this to follow. On 10 February, we delivered an online authorship cases workshop. This workshop will be repeated for different time zones on 24 February at 17.00-18.30pm (AWST)/9.00-10.30am (GMT). The topic of the COPE Forum on 23 March is book… - Case
Duplicate publication in multicentre consortia
Two closely related journals received a series of manuscripts each based on descriptions of a complex medical procedure by multicentre consortia. At least three separate consortia submitted three separate papers. Each consortium included centres which were shared between the three groups and likely have the same patients/procedures represented in different reports. For example: … - Case
Publishing a letter concerning a paper published in another journal many years ago
Recently, Journal X received a letter to the editor based on an article published in another journal about 8 years previously. The editors of Journal X believe this letter is important to their readers. The original article was a seminal paper which changed practice. However, a group of authors challenged some of the data published in this trial in a subsequent review published about 7 ye… - News
Creating and implementing research data policies: COPE webinar report
…availability, and, if available, to require persistent identifier/s and applicable licence information. The guidelines ask for certain TOP Statements to be provided in journals, as explained in a preprint about implementing the guidelines. Audience questions covered practical… - News
In the news: January 2018 Digest
…-journals-stop-interview-kelly-cobey-larissa-shamseer/ https://scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2017/12/11/guest-post-authors-get-caught-predatory-illegitimate-publishing-net/#comment-72599 - News
Case discussion: Consequence for dual submission
This month’s highlighted case is about following up duplicate submission. In COPE Forum case number 17-20, journal A was informed by journal B that an author had withdrawn an accepted manuscript because it had already been accepted elsewhere. In fact, the manuscript had been published in journal A in the previous…