A paper was submitted to journal A. The reviewers were enthusiastic but raised substantive concerns. The editorial decision was 'reject with resubmission allowed', providing the authors the opportunity to submit a revision if they feel all concerns can be addressed. The authors elected to submit substantially the same report to journal B. The outcome was essentially the same; the paper was rejected in its current form, but a revision was invited. The authors requested an extension of the revision submission deadline at journal B, signalling an interest in pursuing a resubmission. Although the extension was granted, the authors ultimately elected not to revise the report for journal B, and instead pursued a resubmission to journal A.
The revised paper was accepted and subsequently published online at journal A. At no point was the submission formally withdrawn from consideration at either journal. A reviewer of the original submission to journal B saw the report online at journal A and notified the editors of both journals regarding potential dual submission concerns. The corresponding authors were contacted, and their position was that, because the paper was never actively under review at more than one journal at any given point in time, there was no violation of journal policies regarding dual submission. In the editor's view, at issue is whether, by submitting the report to journal B, the authors elected not to continue with journal A, thereby disallowing a revision. If not, it would seem clear that the authors considered the paper still active at journal A, disallowing submission to another journal.
Questions for COPE Council
- Is it an instance of dual submission to collect reviews from two journals before deciding which of the two to pursue with a revision? Is the violation against only journal B, or both journals A and B?
- Should the paper appearing online at journal A be withdrawn, or proceed to print?
- Would the decision be different if the authors formally declined to submit a revision to journal B before resubmitting to journal A?
Advice on this case is from a small number of COPE Council Members. Most cases on the COPE website are presented to the COPE Forum where advice is offered by a wider group of COPE Members and COPE Council Members. Advice on individual cases is not formal COPE guidance.
It is certainly unprofessional behaviour on the part of the authors but there does not seem to be an ethical violation. Journal A rejected the paper so the paper was not technically active when the authors made a decision to see if they could get by without doing any revisions by submitting the same paper to journal B. 'Reject' is reject—meaning the end of the contract with the journal. The paper was then rejected by journal B, so the paper again was not active in journal B either. The paper was rejected each time, albeit with an option to resubmit, so the authors were not obligated to that journal. Hence there was no implied contract with either journal. Double submission can only exist when a manuscript is under consideration and publication is a reasonable outcome, which is not the case here. The authors likely created ill will with their behaviour at both journals, but this is not a case of duplicate or simultaneous submission. Their 'shopping around' for the easiest path was not professional, but also not strictly unethical. The publication should proceed as planned by journal A.
The journal may like to consider if editorial language should be clearer in such cases. Editors should consider not using ambiguous decisions such as 'Reject with resubmission allowed'. It would be preferable to use 'Revise' if a journal is willing to see a revised paper and 'Reject' if they are not. Also, if the journal does not want this type of behaviour, this should be added to the journal guidelines and instructions to authors.