- Case
Suspicion of breach of proper peer reviewer behaviour
The Forum suggested that the editor should follow the flowchart on “What to do if you suspect a reviewer has appropriated an author’s idea or data” in such cases. Even if the other journal has published the paper first, the editor can consult the submission dates for confirmation. The first journal would then have to retract the paper on the grounds of plagiarism, if indeed this had been… - Case
Reviewer/author conflict of interest
Dr B accepted an invitation to review a manuscript for Journal A. Dr B was aware only of the title of the manuscript and had read the abstract before accepting the invitation. He was also aware that he was to return his review within two weeks. When the review failed to materialise within the allotted period, the editorial office of Journal A sent the reviewer four email reminders over t… - Case
A patient was given an experimental course of complementary medicine when a standard treatment was available
…for submission. The editors are now planning to write to the authors’ institutions and regulatory bodies.… - Case
An unethical ethics committee?
…reviewer could well be right. The reviewer requested an independent investigation and stated that he would inform the General Medical Council about the study if the editor did not. The independent investigator requested the ethics committee correspondence and patient information material. It transpired that the ethics committee, which was responsible for all three trusts, on submission, had recognised… - CaseCase Closed
New claim to authorship of published paper
In October 2011, our journal received a submission from author A with co-authors B, C and D. After review and revision it was published in mid-2012. In April 2013 we received a complaint from author X, saying that the work published in this paper was his work, and that although author A had been his research supervisor at the time the work was done, authors B, C and D had either little or no… - CaseCase Closed
Authors used pseudonyms on a published article
…a submission without the express permission of the editors. There are very occasional cases where one or more of the authors in a paper may be pseudonymous or anonymous on the published byline if, for example, publishing a paper might put them in danger and there is a clear public interest in the paper being published. One instance of this might be health workers in a repressive regime writing on evidence… - CaseOn-going
An unpublished PhD thesis included in an institutional library is submitted to an academic journal
…to do so. However, if individuals lift text verbatim from their thesis in their manuscripts, it may be picked up by text-matching software (TMS) when it is submitted to a journal. It should also be noted that in many disciplines much of the thesis will already have been published prior to the submission of the thesis, without being regarded as plagiarism. The journal’s course of action… - CaseCase Closed
Suspicious responses to authorship change requests
…submission of the manuscript), the text matched verbatim the response from author A and was oddly phrased, and the email was unsigned. Given these peculiarities, the publisher quickly replied to author D, asking if they could reiterate their consent to the proposed changes, preferably via an institutional address. Author D never responded, even after sending a follow-up message. Without that confirmation,… - CaseOn-going
Author anonymity at the final proofreading stages
…accepted, it may require some final proofreading (eg, footnote cross references, typos, etc). It is easier to do final checks on copies that include the author details. No further decisions as to whether to publish are taken at this stage. However, the reviewers are given the choice as to whether to review a re-submission at any stage, including after acceptance. Also, some individuals who had acted as… - CaseCase Closed
Withdrawal of accepted manuscript from predatory journal
…would proceed with legal action if the article was not removed from the journal’s website by a given date. She will now proceed with submission to a legitimate journal, and the editor of the legitimate journal is comfortable that duplicate publication is no longer a problem.… - CaseCase Closed
Institutional review board approval needed?
…sponsored the thesis but had not gone through an IRB. Question(s) for the COPE Forum 1. Is there ever a time when IRB approval should not be required before review and publication of research? 2. How strictly should the editor adhere to these requirements? With this submission, it would be an automatic reject without IRB approval. … - CaseCase Closed
Possible breach of reviewer confidentiality
…they might wish to contact the editors of the other two journals where the paper was reviewed before submission to us as well as the editor of the journal currently reviewing the manuscript. Question(s) for the COPE Forum(1) Do you think that the journal handled this correctly? … - CaseCase Closed
Fraudulent data presented in a manuscript
…about the result (ie, 100% procedure success rate). One of the peer reviewers, reviewer X, who works with author A at the same institute in Europe, and who was also acknowledged in the author’s submission, provided further comment. In his letter to editor, he stated that “I have reviewed some of their manuscripts more than 10 times, and I have refused to be associated with their research, because… - CaseCase Closed
More than a breach of confidentiality?
The journal followed the advice of the Forum, and a letter was written to the institution of author Y and reviewer P, advising them of the breach of confidentiality. The letter was acknowledged by the institution and an apology made. The author and reviewer have now been barred from reviewing from the journal for a period of 3 years. Submissions from the parties involved will be judged on… - Case
Multiple publication of research
We submit to COPE a case regarding the suspected multiple publication of research on four separate occasions in four different journals. Close inspection of the articles in question revealed that the author had directly copied and reused extensive sections of text, including tables in all four articles. After this matter was bought to the attention of the Editor of Journal A, the chronol… - Case
Incorrect allegations from the head of an institute?
…about the ethics of the study. Now new problems have become apparent. It seems that there is a difference in legal opinion about the ethics approval requirements in force at the time of the study. There appear to be inconsistencies in the timings of submissions and approvals. Furthermore, there is currently a legal case against the authors concerning consent. We have issued an expression… - Case
Misunderstood requirements for authorship
Dr X submitted a paper to a journal that was assigned by a rather hung-over editorial assistant to an associate editor who was a co-author on the paper. Realising the mistake, she emailed the associate editor to reassign the paper. He expressed surprise as he did not know Dr X, had not seen the paper before submission, and knew of no reason why he should be a co-author. Dr X was asked… - Case
Plagiarism in a review article
…peer reviewer is seeking further sanctions. - Should the editor automatically reject any future submissions from these authors on the basis that they are unreliable? - Should the editor explain to the two other peer reviewers why the manuscript has been rejected? - Should the editor encourage the authors to contact the peer reviewer in question so that they can apologise?… - Case
Potential redundant publication
A group of authors from the same specialty unit published a study in Journal A on all prehospital X procedures. They then sent another paper on X procedure in a subgroup of patients to Journal B. Paper B references paper A, but does not make it apparent that there is any overlap in these studies. On questioning by editor B, they stated that no patients in paper B were included in the previous s… - Case
Order of authors changing between a submitted manuscript and a published paper
…was the order the submitting author had specified. The paper had been in preliminary form for over four weeks. The journal’s practice is to send an acknowledgement at submission to all authors. Papers are published on the same day as acceptance or shortly thereafter. This is the citation that PubMed picks up for indexing. The finalised html version is then posted a few days later. The journal now…