2016

A journal published ahead of print a peer-reviewed scientific letter by Drs A (corresponding), B, C, D and E with a description of four patients who underwent a certain procedure. One of the cases took place in hospital X.  Dr C works at hospital X. However, the corresponding author (Dr A) and the other 2 authors (Drs B and D) do not work for hospital X.
 

Several years ago a previous editor of a journal accepted an article for publication following peer review. The current editor feels that the article should not have been accepted in the first instance, but rejected instead. After acceptance, the article was sent to a copy editor who was scheduled to work on it. However, the process was stopped by the previous editor and the copy editor. The language was very poor and was deemed to be un-editable. Also, the equations were incomprehensible.

A journal received a manuscript in July concerning the conditions surrounding the ending of an individual’s contract of employment. Following peer review and revision, the manuscript was accepted and published in October of the same year. Two years later, the journal received a letter from a lawyer representing a client who was suing the former employer discussed in the article. The author of the article had consulted with the employer’s team about the circumstances.

Journal A received an article by Dr X (Article 1) commenting on another author’s work (Dr. Y) which had been published in Journal A and another journal (Journal B) of a different publisher. Because the scientific arguments were involved, and because the articles being criticised had been cited many times in the literature, the Editors of Journal A rejected Dr X's request to publish the work as a 'Comment'.

An article was published in July. In October, a corrigendum was published to correct large sections of unattributed text. Two weeks later the journal and publisher received a complaint from a reader who accused the author of the published article of using text from an unpublished collaborative manuscript on which the published author was participating.

A letter to the editor from reader A was received by our journal concerning a published case history from author B.  Reader A questioned the choice of treatment and author B's conclusion regarding the reason why the patient died. We believe this case raises at least two interesting questions.

In 2012, Dr X started her post-doctoral training under a fellowship. She worked on the project until 2014, when the fellowship ended. She did all the work herself, and gave two seminars showing her results and progress, with positive feedback. When needed, she consulted with the supervisor or with a senior scientist in the laboratory (who has since resigned).

A publisher has recently become aware that an article published in one of their journals two years ago uses pseudonyms instead of the real names of the two authors. Communication with the corresponding author has confirmed the use of pseudonyms.

A journal received a complaint from readership about manipulation of images of gels and also of some figures which had been published as part of a thesis with different sample legends. The authors were contacted to provide explanations for the observed inconsistencies. The authors provided full images and then an official expert analysis, but the Editor-in-Chief did not feel that these responses satisfactorily addressed all the issues queried and the university was asked to investigate.

Our journal has been contacted by an author who would like to submit a review article. The author responded to a request for an invited review from a predatory journal without realizing it was a predatory journal. The author submitted the article only to receive an unexpected invoice and clear evidence of no peer review. The author investigated the journal and then realized the predatory nature of this journal.