A journal usually publishes one student essay each issue. In a recent issue it published a student essay in support of a controversial but lucrative set of interventions. The paper declared no conflicts of interests and only listed two names in the acknowledgements section without describing their role in the manuscript.
The author had been studying an MSc when the first manuscript was submitted, but when revisions were made, and when the paper was published, the author began employment in a clinic which offered the lucrative interventions in support of which the article had argued. The two senior academics that had been acknowledged in the article also received financial benefits from clinics which offered these interventions; one was directly employed as a consultant at such a clinic.
A reader contacted the journal to enquire about these two separate issues: (1) failure to declare interests and (2) failure to declare interests of supervisors.
A correction was published explaining that the author was employed by a clinic providing these interventions when the article was published but was not when the manuscript was drafted and was no longer at the time that the correction was published. The correction also acknowledged the roles of the senior academics, including that one had conceived the topic and title of the essay. It did not however mention that both of the senior academics had a financial interest in the topic in question.
The reader’s letter criticising this practice was not published. The paper remains online and the competing interests statement continues to state none declared. The correction, like the original article, is available behind a pay wall and the nature of the correction is not clear without going behind the paywall.
Questions for COPE Council
- Should corrections be open access?
- Should corrections be made to online versions of papers?
- Should papers be withdrawn where major conflicts are not acknowledged?
- Should student essays declare the conflicts of interests of senior academics involved in the conception or editing of the manuscript?
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.
All corrections should be made freely available online, and not behind a paywall. They do not necessarily need to be published under an Open Access license; many publishers/journals can make individual pieces of content freely available without them publishing under an Open Access licence. If this is not possible in this case then publishing under an Open Access licence may be the only option. Scientific transparency is vital in a case such as this. As long as all the corrections have been made clearly and appropriately, it might not be necessary to withdraw the paper. However, the student essays should certainly declare the conflicts of interests of any senior academics involved in the conception or editing of the manuscript who are named as coauthors. If the study received grants or any sponsorship from the clinic then this must be clearly stated in the manuscript. The role of any funding source should be stated as an acknowledgment. If the funding source had no such involvement, the authors should state this too.
The format(s) of a correction typically depends upon the format(s) of the journal itself. For print-and-online journals, corrections would generally publish both in print and online. If a correction is made while an article is still Online First (that is, online but not yet in print), an online only correction might be sufficient.
COPE's flowchart on undisclosed COIs in published articles suggests issuing corrections for undisclosed COIs by authors, but it does not address people who are acknowledged. As a general practice, publishing COIs for non-authors may not be realistic. Given the concerns raised about this article specifically, perhaps the initial correction should have included more information about the people acknowledged but this probably does not warrant a second correction.
Authors who are students should be not be treated differently from other authors.