- News
Letter from the COPE co-Chairs: May 2018
…Starting the conversation: Outcomes from a research integrity workshop for research institutions, editors and publishers On April 25th members of the Russell Group Integrity Forum met with… - Case
The judgement of Solomon: a case of two strikingly similar papers
In February 2007, author A and a colleague submitted a paper (paper A) to our journal, which uses double-blinded peer review. We sent paper A for external review. Four weeks later, group B submitted a paper (paper B). The editorial office sent paper B to external reviewers, one of whom was author A. Both groups of authors are known to us and well regarded within our discipline. The revie… - Case
Breach of peer review confidentiality
This case concerns a submitted review article that proposes a new theory in a field of research where there are two polarised positions. The original manuscript (R0) underwent peer review and was returned with reports indicating a major revision, which took several months. On submission of the revision, one of the reviewers from the previous round was asked to re-review. That reviewer (r… - News
In the news: November Digest
…researchers look at the link between data sharing and citation, and suggest that articles which share data have a 25% higher citation count. https://thepublicationplan.com/2019/10/11/the-link-between-data-sharing-and-citation-counts/ The Scholarly Kitchen considers two… - News
Letter from COPE: June 2020
…reviewer’s comments and about 25% said they believed it is never acceptable to suppress a complete review. The most common reasons cited for editing reviews were related to unacceptable reviewer comments because they were inflammatory, hostile, or otherwise offensive, or factually incorrect. Other important reasons why editors said they edited reviews was because the reviewers were non-compliant with the… - Case
What extent of plagiarism demands a retraction versus correction?
…idea for the method on a blog 2 years earlier. Side by side comparison shows a significant overlap (approximately 25–30% of the article) between the blog and the article, in particular in the rationale for, and description of, the method. The text is rephrased in many places, but there are large sections that are structurally very similar between the article and the blog with some terminology and… - Case
Should stockholders of a pharmaceutical industry declare conflicts of interest in a research paper?
An article was published in Journal A, investigating the efficacy and safety of generic medicine A. The authors did not declare any conflicts of interest. Generic medicine A is manufactured by company A. Before publication in journal A, the same authors published another study in journal B as a preliminary report. No conflicts of interest were declared. In a recently published art… - Case
Ethical conduct of qualitative research studies
Publishers are seeing an increase in submitted data generated from qualitative research studies. These studies are answering important questions such as identifying unmet need or highlighting the lived experience, potentially adding real value to the body of evidence especially in rare diseases. They are often Pharma funded and / or patient advocacy group led. Many of these studies have… - News
In the news: June 2018 Digest
…="_blank">http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2018/01/16/why-has-no-other-european-country-adopted-the-research-excellence-framework/ The sweet-spot for how much governmental oversight should exist is discussed by Xueying Han and Richard Applebaum on the London School of Economics and Political Science website. They surveyed STEM faculty at 25 of the best universities in China to determine their greatest challenges in realizing the… Common ethical and editorial dilemmas of author misconduct: how should we respond?
…0 2001 39 30 9 0 2002 18 14 4 0 2003 22 15 5 2 2004 25* 17 7 1 Total 212 163…Outcomes of editors' attempts to investigate research misconduct
…Lasted >1 year Redundancy 33 7 3 4 48% Unethical research 16 5 4 7 25% Fraud 13 2 2 4 62% Med negligence 10 0 4 6 70% …Member Insight
…interest in a published article; data integrity issues; and academic freedom. Member Insight: eLearning | Seminar sessions May 2022 Two sessions from our 25th anniversary seminar are now available to watch again. We'd like to hear…Code of conduct for COPE meetings and events
…content All COPE policies Page history Last updated: 25 August 2021 Back to top…- News
In the news: September 2021
…a multiracial group of industry professionals to "help individuals at all levels within scholarly publishing organizations implement inclusive policies, procedures and norms". Research integrity STM Working Group on image alterations and duplications has developed draft - Case
Misrepresentation of journal decision on social media
An author submitted an invited paper to a journal and, after a double anonymous peer review, the decision on the paper was to request ‘major revision’. The author decided not to revise the paper, and therefore effectively withdrew the paper, based on disagreements with the reviewers. These disagreements were not discussed with the editor prior to withdrawing the paper. The editor replied to the… Presentations
…Harvey Marcovitch At the British Dental Editors' Forum London, UK November 2006 2005 Cases of suspected misconduct submitted to COPE Download PDF (56 kb) Presented by Jeremy Theobald At the- News
In the news: November 2020
…to honest error; and, the stigma of retractions can be hard to clean up. Research integrity The authors of this paper analysed 250 citations from five leading scientific journals. They found 25% of quotation references are incorrect or misleading or fail to provide evidence for the claims… - Case
Lack of ethical approval and not reporting experimental evidence
In May 2011 a letter from the Vice-Rector for Personnel of a reputable university was sent to the editor mentioning that two articles published in the journal contained two statements not supported by documented evidence. The two statements related to: (1) approval of the local ethics committee and (2) representation of the experimental evidence. With regard to point (1), the authors sta… - News
In the news: March Digest
…-papers-amid-fears-organs-came-from-chinese-prisoners A survey of 372 Editors found an average of 2-5% instance of plagiarism in submissions, but that Editors tend to overestimate the problem, with Editors in Asia both experiencing and expecting higher levels of plagiarism. The majority of duplication is caused by misunderstanding of what can be repeated, along with language issues. Seminars
…">Download [PDF 25kB] A report of the COPE European Seminar by Shreeya Nanda [BioMed Central] posted on the BioMed Central blog site and linked to here with their permission. Presentations at the 2013 Asia-Pacific Seminar (