- CaseCase Closed
Seeking retrospective ethics approval
I received a submission that had asked a series of questions of visitors to a website about a mental health issue. It was reviewed by a senior colleague and myself. While the science was fine we were both concerned that no mention had been made of any ethics approval. I raised this issue with the authors, especially given that deception was involved. The authors then appear to have… - Case
Redundant publication
…handed to “blacklist” an author. Instead consider introducing a sanction such as declining to consider any submissions from the authors for three years.… - Case
Authorship dispute
…acknowledgement. The editors asked if author A had sought agreement from author B concerning this change, and added that it was not journal policy to make these changes. The reply from author A included a long and detailed account of what was clearly a personal dispute that had developed between these two authors subsequent to submission of the manuscripts. The editors, however, decided to reinstate author… - CaseCase Closed
Authorship dispute
…comprising peer review and revisions by the authors. It was accepted for publication in July 2014. During the evaluation process, author A included two new co-authors (authors F and G). The paper was published in November 2014 with author A and co-authors B, F and G. From the time of manuscript submission until publication, the excluded co-authors C, D and E did not contact the journal or send any… - Case
Duplicate publication
…inform the author that his publication will not consider any further submissions from this group. There is no guarantee that manuscripts would be original and issues of copyright are unclear. The editor would also like to alert the editors of the other journals involved. Is this a reasonable course of action to take?… - Case
Potential duplicate publication
…papers are virtually identical. The corresponding author of the joint site/national agency papers published in Journal B was contacted and provided a full and detailed account of events, backed up by copies of emails. He was unable to explain why—when all authors knew of the plan for the joint submission to Journals A then B, and had from an early stage seen drafts—paper 3 had been submitted to Journal… - Case
An appropriate response to concerns of research validity
…to replicate their initial results and wished to withdraw their manuscript. The editor pressed the authors for a full explanation of the results, including the reasons for not ensuring that the results could be replicated prior to submission. The authors replied again to reassure the editor that they shared the concerns about not being able to replicate the initial results, and explaining… - Case
Revised version different from original version submitted
…was put to the authors, who explained that the studies were of two different non-overlapping patient populations that they were investigating at the same time. They had intended to send only the second study in their original submission, but inadvertently submitted the first one by mistake. This was realised at the point of revisions, so they submitted the second study with an explanation in the… - CaseClosed: author misconduct
Duplicate publication in possibly four papers
…country in another language, and then in English. A native speaker of the other language was able to read both versions and found only minor differences, and the editor of the foreign language journal also did this, and recommended that our journal retract the papers. The authors checked the box on our submission form that indicated that the submissions had not been published elsewhere, and they made no… - CaseCase Closed
Ethical considerations in publishing conference papers
…added (e.g., 40-50% new content). In the latter case, the prepublished content would need to be clearly explained and indicated at the submission stage for the journal editor to consider publication. Some journals may be willing to consider a special appeal in certain cases; e.g., where distribution was very small (only to conference attendees) and the authors are seeking a broader distribution for… - CaseCase Closed
Victim of article theft wants correction to list their name, not retraction
…to publisher B. We contacted publisher B who confirmed the details of the submission to them by author A in 2017. Author B is listed publicly as a reviewer for publisher B's journal, but publisher B could not confirm that they had direct access to this particular submission. Author B said their PhD advisor, now apparently deceased, had given them the article but they recently had doubts that… - Case
Case of duplicate publication detected after 9 years
…for any perceived misconduct but stated that as the other journal was not an indexed journal, he believed that this submission was not a bar to subsequent submissions to an indexed journal. Having discussed the case with the COPE Forum and not being convinced by the author’s reply we took a decision to retract the article on the grounds of duplicate publication. The retraction notice was… - Case
The incomplete systematic review
A systematic review on the effectiveness of a comparatively new group of drugs was submitted. The review had originally been for an independent body, so the submission was an abridged version. A reviewer pointed out that the review made no reference to a Cochrane review and the trials it cited, which had been published some four months before submission of the paper to the journal. The… - Case
The author not affiliated to an institution
_ The editor needs to find out if the author had worked in the department before or whether he had never worked there. _ Had the author used the university’s headed notepaper when making his submission? _ The current employer, or appropriate regulatory body if there is no employer, should be asked to investigate the use of another affiliation. _ Passing off papers under false credentials is… - CaseOn-going
Author refusal to sign an ethics form
A journal has received a submission which is based on patient data (CT scan images). The data have been found to have been taken from an open-source repository. The authors are refusing to sign an Ethics Approval and Consent for Authors form. Questions for the Forum Is a signature in these cases compulsory? How would the Forum recommend we… - Case
How to exclude AI-generated articles
Recently, we discovered a potential problem with the use of AI-generated articles. We would like your advice on formulating a process to screen for AI-generated submissions. In the first review of an article, our EiC found that the author of the manuscript had no prior history of publication, and was connected with an AI website (found during an internet search). The article was not on… - Case
A breach of confidentiality?
We ask our contributors to send us short mini-reviews of interesting articles they have come across in their regular reading. Most of our members also act as peer-reviewers and come across interesting articles as part of the peer-review process, before they are published . If they sent us one of those mini-reviews of an article they have peer-reviewed, and we kept the submission on file… - Case
Authorship without the author’s knowledge
_ The editor should have written to the corresponding author first asking for an explanation, although it was expected that the author would simply offer an apology. It may of, course, have been a genuine mistake or absent mindedness. _ Refer back to the original submission letter to see if all of the authors have signed it.… - Case
Redundant publication?
The paper discussed the use of drug X in condition Y, submitted to journal A. It is a double blind randomised controlled trial, presenting the 1 year result in 129 women. It finds that drug X helps in condition Y. The authors published a similar paper in journal B, 2 months before submission of this paper to journal A. The journal B paper studied the same question in 601 women with a 2 year… - CaseOn-going
Authorship dispute
…is also needed and the editor should clarify if the statements from the university vice rectors resulted from a formal inquiry. The ethical issue can be compounded by the policy by some universities that if they conduct research outside of their own country, they require dual ethical approval by (1) that university and (2) whatever ethical system is in place in the countries where the…