- Event
COPE Forum: September 2022
…href="https://publicationethics.org/case/duplicate-artilces-due-doi-reassignment">Duplicate articles due to DOI reassignment 22-11 Unauthorised reviewer challenges 22-12 Data availability for vulnerable populations 4. Updates to cases Members who have previously brought… - Case
Reprimanded author plagiarizes again
A reviewer, R1, brought to our attention several suspected cases of plagiarism in paper A1, submitted by authors A. The main concerns were:— large parts of paper A1 resembled paper B submitted by a different group of authors B, with one of the most major changes being a change in the observation day;— large parts of a section were taken from paper C by author C, including an… - Forum discussion topics
Publishing when English is not your first language
…exploring the need for guidance and welcomes experiences and suggestions on this topic. A discussion will be held at the COPE Forum, open to COPE Members only, on Thursday 20 June 10:30-12:00 BST / UTC+1. FORUM AGENDA & REGISTER Your comments Whether or not you can attend the COPE Forum, we… Membership subscription fees
…year Less than 12 issues per year £171 12 or more issues per year £568 Publisher membership - 5 or more journals Number of journals Fees per…- Event
COPE Forum: July 2023
…will be held at 12:00-13:30pm (BST / UTC+1) 1. Update on COPE activities Update on COPE activities by the Chair. 2. Forum discussion topic We begin the COPE Forum with a discussion on the topic of Best practices for guest edited collections. - Case
Babies needlessly subjected to a painful procedure for research
A paper was received, which detailed a research project conducted on newborn babies, which involved taking an invasive (and painful) sample from them. The paper was worthy of publication from the point of view of scientific value, but two issues worried the editors. First, it was unclear whether the sick babies’ samples were going to be used as part of their clinical management or whether these… - Case
“Research” without ethics committee approval
Eighteen patients with a variety of symptoms and 10 controls had various measurements taken after being given an oral glucose load. Participants also had routine blood sampling and were put on a defined diet for three days. The authors did not consider it necessary to obtain ethics committee approval, but all participating subjects signed a consent form recording their agreement to take part an… - Case
Suspect author
…approximately 12 years ago; it responded saying it saw no reason to investigate further. A letter, published in one of the specialty journals in 2000 by an independent researcher, asked the question “Why are author A et al’s data so nice?”, pointing out that the probability of such results occurring by chance were infinitesimally small, but as far as we know there have been no formal investigations of author… - Case
Compromised peer review system in published papers
On noticing a high volume of submissions from corresponding author A, editor X flagged up concerns with the preferred reviewers being suggested and their comments. Author A had in most cases suggested the same preferred reviewers for each submission, preferred reviewer accounts had non-attributable email addresses, comments were being returned very quickly (within 24 hours) and were often brief… - News
In the news: July Digest
…functions and constituencies of peer review as a complex social institution” . https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2019/06/12/peer… Increasing number of fraudulent papers produced by “paper mills”
…fostering of professional debate in the wider community. COPE’s 10 Core Practices which includes resources such as guidelines, flowcharts and real publication ethics cases, covers many ethical issues to help editors in their day to day work. COPE was established in 1997 by a small group of journal editors and now has over 12,500 members worldwide from all academic fields.…- Case
Dual submission
…one that have occurred over the past 12 months. Once again, this case was spotted by chance. The editor feels that there must be many more examples of duplicate publication that get through, especially when they go to different journals. How can editors prevent these cases, rather than trying to catch them in a net with many holes in it? Is the answer to take stronger action against those that are… - Case
Accusation of non-attribution of authorship
In 2008, our journal published a specific series, and an author offered to write short introductions to a series of summaries of the management of various medical problems. One of the articles used a summary written by the complainant, who was fully acknowledged in the table accompanying the article written by his colleagues, but not included as an author. Two years after publication, he compla… - 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
Plagiarism of a PhD thesis
We received a complaint from an author claiming that her PhD thesis had been plagiarized in a journal article. After many discussions, the editorial office decided that the authors should resolve this issue among themselves, as it was an author dispute.After further correspondence, the editorial office is now also saying that because the thesis is not published anywhere, there is no need… - Case
The role of the lead author
…href="http://publicationethics.org/news/what-constitutes-authorship-new-cope-discussion-document" rel="nofollow">What constitutes authorship discussion document How to handle authorship disputes: a guide for new researchers… Work with us
…including age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage and civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, ethnic origin, nationality, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. Page history Page last updated: 12 September 2023…- News
In the news: January 2021
…published". Peer review will be changed so that it is prepared for public reviews for all papers under review. Impact factor Clarivate has announced that it will change the method for calculating the Journal Impact Factor to use the date of the online publication, not the print publication… - News
Letter from the COPE co-Chairs: November 2018
…survey. If you would be interested in getting your voice heard, please register your interest here." And finally, we want to welcome four new Council members: Timothy Devinney from Leeds, Gavin Swanson from CUP, Laura Wilson from Emerald and Daoxin Yin from… - Event
15th EASE General Assembly and Conference
…scientific writing mistakes: Grammar and presentation In partnership with Edanz Innovative Scientific Solutions, trainer Gareth Dyke Tuesday, 29 June,12.00pm BST Price £100, EASE conference delegates are eligible for a reduced price £40