- Case
Appropriate scope of review for retractions
An institutional review recommended retraction of certain works by a highly prolific and influential author who has since died. The institutional review focused on a relatively small portion of this author’s work. The institution recommended retraction based on deeming the articles unsafe and identifying several concerns, including that the articles' conclusions were implausible. As a pu… - Case
Simultaneous submission without aiming at duplicate publication
An invite for a review was made by journal A. The first revision was done six months after submission, and the second revision two months later. Three weeks after submission of the second revision, the editor’s decision was minor revision. At this point, the corresponding author, author X, informed the editor of journal A that the authors were reluctant to respond to the comments of the second… - Case
Request to remove an author post-publication
A paper was submitted to a journal by authors A and B. The paper was accepted and then published in the journal. Several months after final publication, author A contacted the journal asking for their name and their biography to be removed from the article. Author A stated that they wished to distance themselves from the research. Author B also contacted the journal separately to… - News
In the news: May 2020
…acceptable. The document was not meant for public viewing, but was posted on the website of the Fudan University in Shanghai. https://us.cnn.com/2020/04/12/asia/china-coronavirus-research-restrictions-intl-hnk/index.html The managing editor for academic publications at… - Case
Complaint over protocol used in special issue
We launched a Special Issue (SI) focusing on the application of a particular clinical protocol, with guest editors that have an extensive clinical history in applying this protocol. This specific protocol is currently used and promoted by a small subset of practitioners, with limited wider recognition. The SI concluded with a substantial number of published articles, including several case repo… - Translated resources
El autor de un artículo rechazado nombra y critica de forma pública al revisor por pares: caso
…COPE puede ser útil en este campo. Basado en el caso 16-12 Author of rejected paper publicly names and criticises peer reviewer Related resources - News
In the news: August 2018 Digest
…the first or first ten papers that show up on a search. In any case, which papers are cited by an author may have a complex set of reasons and is worth considering.http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/neuroskeptic/2014/10/12/what-drives-academic-citations/#.W2wCTdhKit… - News
In the news: December Digest
…International Congress on Peer Review and Scientific Publication will be held in Chicago, September 12-14, 2021. There is a link to their website, with a call for submission. The Peer Review Congress has the aim to "encourage research into the quality and credibility of peer review and scientific publication, to establish the evidence base on which scientists can improve the conduct, reporting, and… - News
Letter from the COPE Chair: December 2020
…Correction to December Digest (Vol 8 Iss.12) In the December Digest Letter, we stated that “In May, arXiv, medRxiv, bioRxiv, and other preprint platforms adjusted their policies to not accept computational models so that the chances of misinformation or unhelpful information being posted would be… - Case
Meta-analysis: submission of unreliable findings
A meta-analysis was conducted of about 1000 patients included in a number of small trials of a drug for emergency management administered by route X compared with route Y. The report concluded that administration by route X improves short term survival. Chronology The paper was submitted to our journal in September 2011 and after peer review was retur… - Case
Authorship dispute
A manuscript was published by journal X and submitted by author A (last author). Author B claims that fraud occurred in relation to authorship for the following reasons. (1) Author A did not take part in producing the data for the paper and has never been a co-author on any version of the manuscript.(2) A paper with very similar content ,which was part of the PhD thesis of author C… - Case
Possible violation of the Helsinki Declaration on Scientific Research with Humans
A manuscript underwent peer review and the resulting reviewer comments raised grave concerns about the ethical legitimacy of the study.The reviewer: questioned the authors’ impartiality, suggesting that there was an undeclared conflict of interest; raised serious concerns about the extent to which participants gave informed consent; strongly doubted that the… - Case
Suspected image manipulation involving four journals
…action to be decided. As the paper was only recently (12 August) rejected by journal A, it has yet to hear back from author X, if indeed it does at all. Journal A feels that it is important that journals B, C and D are made aware of the issues in the papers they have published. However, they also feel that it is important that they are made aware of all of the papers involved so they can… - Case
Author of rejected paper publicly names and criticises peer reviewer
The first author of a paper rejected by our journal publicly identified one of the four peer reviewers for the paper by name. She did this during a media interview conducted after the paper was published by another journal. The first author implied in that interview and subsequently on Twitter that the paper was rejected because of that person's review and also claimed the reviewer did not reve… - Case
Undisclosed conflict of interest
…read “Conflicts of interest: None declared”, because “attending events” is not normally something that would be considered a COI. The authors approved the galleys and did not object to these copyediting changes. Shortly after publication, we received a 12-page letter from a journalist, detailing extensive undisclosed COIs of the authors. The letter was also addressed to another journal which… - Forum discussion topics
Claiming institutional affiliations
…affiliations Khaled Moustafa, Arabixiv Papers A summary of the discussion at the virtual Forum event will be added to this page shortly. Page updated: 12 December 2023 We welcome comments on… - News
Case discussion: Consequence for dual submission
…submission”, or “simultaneously submitted” return fewer cases. Performing a Boolean search for ["multiple submission" + "questionable behaviour (author)"] returns 12 cases: the case under discussion and 11 others. Case discussion In COPE Forum… - Case
Authorship issue
The editors of a scientific journal were sent a letter of complaint from Drs A and B who noticed that a paper had been published online ahead of the print edition authored by Dr C. Their primary complaint was that they were not included in the authorship and should have been. Other points made in their (rather confusing letters) were that: they had contributed to the paper in the sense t… - News
Allegations of Misconduct webinar summary, April 2019
…Allegations of Misconduct COPE Webinar 12 April, 2019 Watch and listen again to the recording of our Allegations of Misconduct webinar: - News
Authorship and Contributorship focus: an editor view and research institution view
…members, and COPE has created dedicated resources to help address these issues, including: a guide for new researchers on handling authorship disputes, COPE discussion document on authorship (in the process of being…