- Case
Department notification regarding sensitive topic
…because the essay was considered confidential, as all manuscripts are considered prior to publication. The university was offered the opportunity to reply to the essay via a letter to the editor, which they have done. Was it correct (and ethical) to not notify the department because of the confidentiality of the manuscript? Or, was it incorrect (and unethical) to not notify the department… - Discussion documents
Best practice in theses publishing. March 2017
Introduction Traditionally, theses for higher degrees were published by universities in hard copy only. Now increasingly, these are also archived and may be made freely available via university repositories. They may or may not have associated licenses such as those from Creative Commons which also allow reuse. Questions have arisen at COPE forums and other… - News
Letter from the COPE co-Chairs: September 2018
#PeerReviewWeek18 Peer Review Week 2018, is here! And the question PRW is asking us all is “What does diversity mean to you?” Do you remember the first Peer Review Week, back in 2015? From that ambitious start the PRW conversation evolved via “ - Case
Author dispute over internal report
…to their company, they were entitled to re-use the content without permission. They proposed a resolution whereby author A was included as an author of the journal article via an erratum. This erratum was published, but author A remains discontent and has made it clear that he would like the journal article to be retracted. Authors B, C and D have yet to be consulted on retraction, although… - Discussion documents
Who 'owns' peer reviews? September 2017
…even after publication, unless expressly permitted by relevant parties. Authors must be consulted about publication of all pre-accepted works, as they may not wish to see details of earlier versions of their paper revealed via peer review reports. Podcast Pete Binfield, Publisher and co-Founder of PeerJ, and Elizabeth Moylan, Senior Editor BioMed Central, discuss "Who… - Case
Sanctions for citation cartels?
Multiple journals appear to be affected by a citation cartel between a group of researchers across three universities, via the medium of special issues. All articles within the issues contain a high proportion of citations to the same researchers at the three universities, many as high as 100%. Looking at the pattern of citations to these researchers' work, they have only ever been cited in… - News
Letter from the COPE Chair: October 2020
…awareness and wider adoption of the statement of principles. In our last Forum, with guest speaker Elisabeth Bik, we discussed the topic Systematic manipulation of the publishing process via 'paper mills'. A fascinating but troubling operation, which seems to be increasing in frequency, or at least the frequency in… - News
Facilitation & integrity: name changes
…Summary of issue of concern raised to the Facilitation and Integrity subcommittee An issue of concern was submitted to COPE via the Facilitation and Integrity subcommittee, which facilitates the review of concerns that authors or readers have about COPE member journals. A few years ago, a transgender… - Case
Order of authors changing between a submitted manuscript and a published paper
…The editor contacted authors A, B, and G (submitting author) to ask them to agree between them the correct author list and to contact the editors, via the submitting author, within one week. The editor also suggested that a possible solution might be to indicate that the authors A and B contributed equally. Author A contacted the editor to say the author list should be A, B, C, D, E, F, G and author… - Case
Suspicious responses to authorship change requests
…submission of the manuscript), the text matched verbatim the response from author A and was oddly phrased, and the email was unsigned. Given these peculiarities, the publisher quickly replied to author D, asking if they could reiterate their consent to the proposed changes, preferably via an institutional address. Author D never responded, even after sending a follow-up message. Without that confirmation,… - Case
An unpublished PhD thesis included in an institutional library is submitted to an academic journal
…on theses clear. A citation, an acknowledgement or a footnote can all be adequate signals that the article was an adaptation or extension of graduate student research. The editors might also like to request that authors make it clear if the work is based on a thesis which is publicly searchable via the university repository, for example, in a cover letter. Some journals do have very strict policies… - Seminars and webinars
Ethical concerns in research on urbanisation: perspectives from the Global South
…and research questions developed together. Writing should be done collectively, bearing in mind who it is for, how it can be accessed, and what language will be most appropriate for wider communication. Equitable access to research Accessibility to research outputs can be enhanced not only via fee waivers and discounts, but also through events and panels hosted by organisations like… - Discussion documents
Dealing with concerns about the integrity of published research
…/flowcharts/responding-whistleblowers-when-concerns-are-raised-social-media">Responding to whistleblowers when concerns are raised via social media COPE flowchart Responding to anonymous whistleblowers COPE discussion document, 2013 - News
COPE in 2023
…to be a regulatory body. As a membership organisation that is run by volunteers this cannot be what we do at COPE. Rather, our aim is educational and aimed at providing guidance and advice – not only to our members but, indirectly, to the wider community. Our goal is to raise standards and awareness of best practice via collaborative dialogue, providing an objective space… - Seminars and webinars
Inclusive language: policing or progressive?
…they also often take place in journals which are behind paywalls and so are not widely accessible. It is through usage that words evoke reality, not via rules imposed by others. The best way forward would be to collaborate via our national academies to assess attitudes to language in an inclusive way. Promoting cultural change Lisa Richardson begins her talk by acknowledging the… FORUM DISCUSSION TOPIC: Sharing of information among editors-in-chief regarding possible misconduct
…(since it would be much better to so jointly); It is appropriate to use email for such communications, all of which should be marked as, and treated as, confidential; Participating journals would inform authors via their webpages that information may be shared under these circumstances. Even were legal advice to suggest that such a Code would not prevent a legal…- News
Authorship, a blunt tool: "20 Jahre Research Integrity in Deutschland Was hat sich verändert? Wie geht es weiter?"
…means it’s critical that we continue and broaden the conversation about research authorship. So let’s do that, together. (Image credit: by Ward, Lock, & Tyler of London [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.) COPE co-chairs - News
Vacancies on COPE Trustee Board
…our current complement of representation from this region. We are specifically seeking: candidates with a high level of business strategy experience (for example, via a senior finance, business development, or strategic planning role). candidates with a background in the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences In accordance with… - Case
Retractions of primary literature papers: how should a review journal react?
…papers. As editor, I have been urged a number of times via email (the true sender of which was not always clear) to retract the said review. At first—before the full extent of the retractions was confirmed—I could do no more than wait, rather than react prematurely, although even at that stage, tracking and trying to verify the claims took some time. Now I have analysed the review—which took… - Case
Concerns about the reliability of findings following re-analysis of a dataset from a published article
…employed for the analyses and they have not formally agreed to retract the article. We have offered the reader to submit his re-analysis for publication but he is not interested in doing this; he is however willing for us to make his re-analysis publicly available via a public notification on the published article if we decide that such a notification is necessary. In the light of the…