- News
Letter from the COPE Chair: November 2020
…finally, our peer review workshop will be held on Thursday 19 November, at the earlier time of 9.00am GMT (5.00pm AWST, 2.30pm IST) to enable a wider global range of our members to add their insights and experiences to the event. This workshop is now full. Look out for more COPE workshops in 2021. Wishing you all… - Case
Data fabrication, lack of ethical approval, withdrawal of paper and publication in another journal
…is planned. At this stage, contacting the ethics committees of the two institutions involved will be my next step. This is very delicate as this has already been done by the other journal (I am not sure if the ethics committee or the authors were contacted). How should I proceed? Should the editor of the other journal be copied in on the correspondence? To whom should my letter be… - Case
Authorship issue related to misleading action of one author
…with the fallout from this and the funding agency. She asked if she should withdraw the manuscript? Or if not, should the second author be listed as an author? As editor, I am reluctant to have the second author remain on the manuscript, especially given the fact that he may have done less on the manuscript than he originally said and may not even qualify for authorship according to the ICMJE… - News
Vacancies on COPE Council
…Annual seminars and workshops are held in a number of locations worldwide and it is hoped that Council Members will participate in at least one of these. "Inspiring, busy and exciting years. It has been a truly unique experience and I am happy to have done my bit." Iria del Río, COPE Council 2016-2019 Key responsibilities COPE is governed by the - Case
Possible fabricated data: a conspiracy of silence?
…about the validity of the data, which were raised in an editorial by Dr Z. I am waiting to hear if the editor of Journal A is willing to help investigate the papers. I also contacted Dr Z and raised the possibility of fraud with him. He said that he had “serious concerns about the work” but declined to help me investigate. We have withdrawn the review until we can find out if the data are real.… - Case
Meta-analysis: submission of unreliable findings
…(who wrote the editorial accompanying the RCT in the high profile journal) agreed “it makes no sense to report a meta-analysis claiming death reduction considering available data”. He then copied us in an email he had sent to the lead author of the meta-analysis in January 2012, before it was sent back to our journal: “just to let you know that I am finishing an editorial on (the RCT) which will… - Case
Claim of plagiarism in published article
…beginning, if she wishes to pursue this further. Questions for the COPE Forum(1) Do I have an obligation to contact the open access journal with my findings? I am reluctant to do so given there are legal implications (lawyer contacted by author A); author B's paper has not actually been removed; and there are professional medical writers and a pharmaceutical company involved in author… - Case
Author of rejected paper publicly names and criticises peer reviewer
…expressed the hope that we would make his review public, saying "I am continuing to get emails from people who are assuming that I wrote negative reviews for the paper and raising questions about conflict of interest. I believe my reviews to have been supportive of publication and not to comment on whether the journal should accept or not. So from my point of view it would be helpful if you could publish… - Case
Author requests for certain experts not to be included in the editorial process
…board. The author has submitted letters to the journal, which have been published. One of these letters was in response to a paper published by the journal and authored by editor A. After submission of the paper the author emailed the editorial office with the comments: “I am sure that [the journal] will make sure that this manuscript is treated judiciously and justly. I humbly request that [the… - News
Vacancies on COPE Trustee Board
…ethics between 2012 and 2019. I am very glad I was able to contribute to some of the great work of COPE." Geri Pearson, Past co-Chair, comments on the personal benefits of working with COPE: “All of my years involved with COPE Council, Trustees, and leadership have… - Case
Unethical withdrawal of a paper
…note is shown below: “I have a problem with this paper. I presented an earlier version of it at the xxxx conference in xxxx this xxxx. Each year the Editor B’s Journal xxxx runs a special edition based on xxx and our paper has been short listed from the papers presented at this year’s conference. So unfortunately I am going to have to withdraw it from your journal. However, this is part of an… Seminars
…href="/files/u7140/COPE%20AsiaPacific%20Semianr%20report.pdf">Download 2012 Presentations at the 2012 North American Seminar (Download PDF [32 kb] of the seminar programme) The 2012 North American Seminar was held on Friday, 19 October 2012 at the Bechtel Conference Center, ASCE Building, 1801 Alexander…- Forum discussion topics
Editing of reviewer comments
…peer review score sheet itself, just ahead of the comment fields, to the effect "Please keep your comments clear, specific, and constructive, aimed at helping the authors improve their work". I am surprised by the number of unprofessional comments from reviewers that we see on a regular basis, especially in the current context where reviewer reports can be officially published and have… - Seminars and webinars
Webinar 2020: Understanding text recycling
…ultimately, on the specific language of the publisher. I am increasingly seeing publishers make explicit allowances for the re use of thesis and dissertation materials. I also believe that in stem disciplines, such reuse is generally considered both ethical and even professionally desirable. I expect that our model guidelines will be including such explicit permission for students to recycle material… - News
Allegations of Misconduct webinar summary, April 2019
…analysis. However, I am providing, without endorsement or with any intention to infer that I have used these products, links to some software that you may wish to assess yourself and with your publisher and information technology professionals. You could do your own search of the internet if you do not have access through a publisher, institution or information specialist by entering “image manipulation software”… - News
In the news: October 2018 Digest
…research they fund. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06903-2 By including this paper under the heading of “academic misconduct” I am not implying that that the authors acted inappropriately. Some would argue that they did and perhaps they are correct. These authors, self-described as… - News
Welcome new COPE members April-June 2019
…href="https://publicationethics.org/members/applied-physics-reviews" style="color:#0563c1; text-decoration:underline">https://publicationethics.org/members/applied-physics-reviews AMS Review https://publicationethics.org/members/ams-review Analog Integrated Circuits and Signal Processing