- News
In the news: January 2019 Digest
…and Gifu University- suggests that it is.http://retractionwatch.com/2018/12/17/is-it-time-for-a-new-classification-system-for-scientific-misconduct Conflicts of Interest A joint analysis by the New York Times and ProPublica has reported that… - Event
6th World Conference on Research Integrity (WCRI), Hong Kong, 2019
…and Edanz Group, Fukuoka 15:45 – 17:15 Symposium (SY3) Preprints: Beneficial or harmful for research integrity and publication ethics? A debate (Grand Hall) Sabine Kleinert, The Lancet and Chris Graf, COPE Past co-Chair (Conveners) John Inglis, bioRxiv; and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press, New York Heather Tierney, COPE Council; and American Chemical… - Event
COPE Forum: December 2022
…="https://publicationethics.org/case/temporary-exception-double-anonymous-review-policy">Temporary exception to double anonymised review policy 22-17 Open discussion Using guest editors for single article submissions 4. Updates to cases Members who have previously brought cases to the COPE Forum update us on their progress. 22-05 - Case
Anonymity versus author transparency
An editor invited an author to submit a paper to his journal. Colleagues of the author suggested “unsubmission” because it could be damaging to the author’s career. The editor contacted the publisher and requested that the paper be withdrawn. The editor then contacted the author asking if he would consider publishing the paper anonymously (ie, with no identifying names). The editor did not cons… - Case
A systematic review on a country’s health problem written by non-native authors
Journal A received a submission which focused on a systematic review/meta-analysis of a health problem in a specific country. It was written by four authors who do not live in that country. In addition, none of the authors seem to have any professional affiliation with any institution or researchers in that country. The systematic review/meta-analysis was based on published references and did n… - News
In the news: August 2021
…href="https://www.councilscienceeditors.org/about/awards/" target="_blank">award has gone to CRediT, a high-level taxonomy that includes 14 roles that can be used to represent the roles typically played by contributors to scholarly output. A name change policy has been launched by the17 US national laboratories and 17 publishing organisations and services. "The partnership between the national laboratories, major scientific publishers,… - News
Letter from the COPE co-Chairs: November 2018
…China. Adrian Ziderman has been re-elected for a second term to COPE Council. We welcome them all as we move into the next year. Read November Digest: Post-Publication Discussions and Corrections COPE co-Chair - 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
COPE collaboration with FORCE11 Working Group
…href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.13169/prometheus.36.2.0116?seq=1">research assessing data policies at journals across a number of disciplines. The authors looked at the information sharing policies of 150 journals and publishers from 15 disciplines to understand the levels of different data sharing policies in different fields. Our collaboration with the FORCE11 WG allows us to continue our work supporting editors and publishers in handling ethical considerations… - News
Data and reproducibility focus
…standardized reporting guidelines to ensure that studies can be replicated. Data sharing policies are one area of