- CaseCase Closed
Authors referring readers to an objectionable version of an article on a preprint site
Journal A accepted a commentary for publication. In the acceptance letter and communications with the authors, the editor requested the authors remove portions of their commentary that contained derogatory comments about individuals and the journal that were deemed inappropriate for discourse in a scholarly publication. The authors agreed to do so. Prior to sending the final version of their co… - CaseCase Closed
Query regarding a retraction
A journal published a paper. Some months later, the author asked if they could change the contents of the paper. The Editor in Chief had some concerns with respect to some of the results and could not come to an agreement with the author. The author then requested withdrawal of this paper and asked that it be removed from the database. The author also accused the journal of being unethical. - CaseCase Closed
Disputed change in authorship
A case control study was submitted to a journal. It was subjected to the usual peer review processes. After the required revisions, the article was accepted for publication. After acceptance, the journal received a letter from the corresponding author (author A) with a request to add the name of a new author (author B). The journal declined, stating that it would be unethical. The… - CaseCase Closed
Conflicts of interest, corrections, and student research
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 manuscrip… - CaseCase Closed
Behaviour of researcher during peer review
An anonymised manuscript was sent to a senior faculty member (researcher A) of a well-known institute for peer review. The faculty member was known to have pedigree in publication on the topic of the manuscript for many years. The manuscript was rejected with comments. Based on editorial opinion and other comments, the manuscript was rejected by the editor-in-chief. Six weeks after rejection, i… - CaseCase Closed
Should stockholders of a pharmaceutical industry declare conflicts of interest in a research paper?
An article was published in Journal A, investigating the efficacy and safety of generic medicine A. The authors did not declare any conflicts of interest. Generic medicine A is manufactured by company A. Before publication in journal A, the same authors published another study in journal B as a preliminary report. No conflicts of interest were declared. In a recently published art… - CaseCase Closed
Criteria to determine whether an author’s response to concerns about data validity is satisfactory
Questions were raised regarding the validity of data in two published papers (from the same author). The journal therefore followed the initial steps as listed in the COPE flowchart ‘What to do if you suspect fabricated data’ and contacted the author as appropriate. The author responded promptly and provided all the information requested (ethics approval letters, the original protocols… - CaseCase Closed
Request for removal for one author but a coauthor cannot be reached
A journal accepted a paper but after receiving the decision letter, the corresponding author asked if one of the coauthors could be removed from the authorship list. This coauthor is now a prominent politician and felt that their new role would conflict with being an author on the paper. The journal informed the corresponding author that they would need written confirmation from… - CaseCase Closed
Is ethics committee approval necessary for retrospective clinical studies?
A journal received a manuscript on risk factors for a disease, which had no ethics committee approval or dispensation. The clinical data were collected from the electronic and physical histories of the patients during hospitalization. The authors stated that the study was not submitted to an ethics review board because these data are "secondary." In some countries, this type of research will re… - CaseCase Closed
Corrigendum or erratum?
The publisher of a journal has found a spelling mistake in a published manuscript (an abbreviation was explained incorrectly in the original published manuscript). Having in mind COPE's guidelines, "The term erratum usually refers to a production error, caused by the journal. The term corrigendum (or correction) usually refers to an author error", is a corrigendum the proper way to correct this… - CaseCase Closed
Plagiarism and copyright of material without permission
The presenters found an e-book where all of the 'chapters' comprised articles from different issues and volumes of their journal. These were used without the journal’s permission or any form of approval. The journal’s co-publisher neither gave permission nor was contacted. Also, no one contacted the authors of the articles involved for permission. The journal is open access with… - CaseCase Closed
Possible authorship conflict over an article published ahead of print
Journal A received an original article (article B) with three coauthors which showed substantial similarities with a single-authored article accepted in the same journal a few months previously (article A). The author of article A was one of the three coauthors of article B. The journal contacted the corresponding author of article B (Author 2) to inform them of the similarities between… - CaseCase Closed
Publication of correspondence relating to a paper currently online
A journal published an article discussing alleged partnerships between a well-known soft drinks brand and a number of health organisations in one particular country. The article was fully peer-reviewed prior to acceptance and now sits online in the journal’s advance access section of the website. A month after it appeared online, the Editor-in-Chief started to receive several written calls for… - CaseCase Closed
Using the name of a scientific society inappropriately
A journal published an article about clinical recommendations for a condition that supposedly was the result of a consensus between two scientific societies of different medical specialties. The article underwent peer review and no problems were identified at that stage. However, about one month after publication the journal was contacted by one of the scientific societies raising concerns that… - CaseCase Closed
Duplicate submission or self plagiarism. Is the author to blame?
An article was submitted to Journal A for publication. According to the journal’s policy, the article was scanned using anti-plagiarism detection software, which gave a 17% similarity result. As the journal allows up to 20% similarity, the article was sent for peer review to two reviewers. One of the reviewers noted that the article had been published in a similar form in a conference proceedin… - CaseCase Closed
Plagiarism versus questionable research writing practice
The authors of a paper were asked to explain alleged plagiarism in a submitted and subsequently accepted manuscript. This was based on a Turnitin report showing 28% similarity between the submitted manuscript (Author B) and a previously published paper (Author A), and 37% similarity between a published manuscript (Author A) and a submitted manuscript (Author B). The authors came back with an ex… - CaseCase Closed
Conflicting authorship in a collaboration
An article by Author X was published in Journal A. The refereeing process was conducted along standard rules. Two months after publication, Journal A received a complaint from an independent researcher Y, demanding retraction of the article on the basis that the article was published with an author list representing only a minority of the actual collaboration, with no new experimental data or f… - CaseCase Closed
Authorship order in dual publications
A group of experts from two different learned societies produced a consensus of guidelines on the management of a condition. Both societies wished to publish the manuscript in the respective journals of their societies. However, they requested the authorship order be different on the two respective submissions. Questions for COPE Council Is it feasible to pub… - CaseCase Closed
Editor as author
A publisher was contacted by an editor-in-chief of one of their journals. The editor-in-chief wanted to submit an article written by themselves and one of the journal editorial board members. The article related to treatment provided by the editor to a patient, who was also the coauthor of the paper. The publisher was concerned about the ethical issues that would need to be addre… - CaseCase Closed
Withdrawal of acceptance based on potentially unconsented data
Two papers were retracted (without dispute from the authors) after a lengthy investigation. It was discovered that some of the data used in these articles were gathered without participant consent for the study or for publication (no participants are identifiable). The investigation was conducted by a public body in the country of the authors, and the journal has been told that they will not be…