- CaseCase Closed
Author cannot be located
A manuscript was submitted to a journal and after the review and revision process, it was accepted for publication. However, after the manuscript was accepted for publication, the coauthor stopped answering emails and therefore did not sign the copyright form, or affirm acceptance of the rights and responsibilities of authorship. The journal and production staff tried contacting the coauthor on… - CaseCase Closed
Exposing citation manipulation and fraud in the community
A publisher has identified a ring of three individuals who acted as guest editors for three special issues. These individuals used nine fake accounts to peer review manuscripts. For some manuscripts, the fake identities were used alongside legitimate reviewers, while in other cases they were used exclusively. The publisher has also identified several submissions to those special issues where th… - CaseCase Closed
Sanctions for citation cartels?
Multiple journals appear to be affected by a citation cartel between a group of researchers across three universities, via the medium of special issues. All articles within the issues contain a high proportion of citations to the same researchers at the three universities, many as high as 100%. Looking at the pattern of citations to these researchers' work, they have only ever been cited in the… - CaseCase Closed
An ambiguous plagiarism case
A paper was published in journal A. The plagiarism check tool did not show any similarity during the peer review process. Some time after publication of the paper, the editor-in-chief was contacted by an author who had published a paper in journal B. They claimed that the paper published in journal A was plagiarised from their MSc research project thesis and asked journal A to ret… - CaseCase Closed
Can a journal retract a paper against the recommendation of an institutional investigation?
A research article, published several years ago, was alleged to have integrity issues relating to some of the figures. Following detailed checking of the figures, the editors confirmed these issues and found more issues. The authors provided the raw data, some of which also had integrity issues. An institutional investigation concluded that the data were sound but the editor still feels uneasy… - CaseCase Closed
Publishing a letter concerning a paper published in another journal many years ago
Recently, Journal X received a letter to the editor based on an article published in another journal about 8 years previously. The editors of Journal X believe this letter is important to their readers. The original article was a seminal paper which changed practice. However, a group of authors challenged some of the data published in this trial in a subsequent review published about 7 ye… - CaseCase Closed
Using industry knowledge to evaluate an ethics case
A journal owned by publisher A recently posted an article critical of publisher B. Both publishers A and B are COPE members. Publisher B has already responded with several claims about the author’s methodology. Publisher A would normally defer to the journal’s editors. However, because the content of the article relates to the publishing industry, publisher A has particular insights into the to… - CaseCase Closed
Reader concerns about ethics approval and consent from a vulnerable population
A reader raised concerns on social media about whether informed consent for research reported in a published article was obtained. An investigation by the journal resulted in the publication of a correction explaining that written, informed consent was obtained from the research participants. A separate, small group of researchers followed up and raised further questions regarding… - CaseCase Closed
Use of secondary data without proper attribution
Journal A received a paper on a cross sectional study from six coauthors. It was reviewed, accepted and published. Two months later, a clinician contacted the journal and said that the material was taken from their thesis submitted to the same institution six years previously. The corresponding author explained that the data were obtained from a large institution database and pro… - CaseOn-going
Salami slicing/duplicate publication
An article with four authors was published in journal A. The same article with a slight change in the title and one additional author, was published three months later in journal B. The authors had submitted the article to both journals at the same time. The number of study subjects in the two articles were the same, with a very slight difference in the wordings of the objective o… - CaseOn-going
Guest editors for single articles
A COPE member has noted instances of journals contacting individuals - who are not on their editorial board - to request that they act as guest editor for a single manuscript. The invitation makes it clear that they are being asked to recruit reviewers and to make the editorial decision. This practice includes instances where the invitee has had no prior contact with the journal. C… - CaseCase Closed
Temporary exception to double anonymised review policy
The journal conducts double-anonymous reviews of all manuscripts submitted. As part of the decision process, reviewers routinely receive a copy of the decision letter, which includes reviewers’ comments. In the transition to a new editorial staff, a change to the email template inadvertently meant that the full letter was sent out, including the corresponding author’s name. Before this was disc… - CaseCase Closed
Request to remove author from submitted manuscript due to academic misconduct
Regarding a submitted (but not yet accepted) paper from a scientific collaboration, one of the authors has asked whether an instance of academic misconduct or - for that matter - any non-scientific but rather unsavoury personal facts or accusations (e.g. a penal or civil proceedings) can be considered as a valid ground for requesting that the journal remove an author from the paper, as per the… - CaseOn-going
Reviewer misconduct and its potential impact on an submitted manuscript
Author X raised concerns that confidential information obtained during the peer review of their submission with Journal Y had been misappropriated by one of the reviewers of their submission (reviewer Z). Author X believed that reviewer Z had used this confidential information in order to silently alter code published by reviewer Z with repository R, which contained errors that were high… - CaseCase Closed
Article published at two journals after withdrawal from first journal
Journal B was contacted by a group of authors who had published their article in Journal B a few months previously. The authors were concerned as they found that their article had been published by Journal A, a journal they had previously submitted the article to but withdrawn prior to publication. Journal B requested the withdrawal confirmation from the authors, and this was duly provided. On… - CaseCase Closed
Data availability for vulnerable populations
A paper on a vulnerable population was published in a journal. The journal followed their usual procedures for processing papers on vulnerable populations, by requesting and reviewing further information on the ethics approval and consent procedures of the study (e.g.: recruitment procedures; blank version of the consent document participants read and signed; the study protocol that was approve… - CaseOn-going
Duplicate articles due to DOI reassignment
The editors of Journal C have found that 15 of their recent articles have been assigned slightly different DOIs in the Online First and the final issue versions. This arose from administrative problems with the publisher’s production process and has resulted in duplicated articles in both spaces, and there may be other duplicate articles due to reassigning different DOIs. The editors of… - CaseOn-going
Dealing with cases with culturally offensive content
Society journal X and propriety journal Y have received complaints regarding historic papers published in their journals (generating a lot of anger on twitter). The papers outline a practise the society (who had a historic role in its development) no longer endorse. The society has released an apology about their involvement with the practise, but the practice itself is not illegal (in the majo… - CaseOn-going
Author accused of sexual harassment
A reviewer for Journal X declined to review a paper as author Y has been the subject of a sexual harassment investigation. Author Y left the institute before the result of the investigation, thereby avoiding the outcome of the case. There is an academic loophole which allows those accused of misconduct to avoid any potential consequences by resigning before the outcome of the investigation, mea… - CaseOn-going
Unauthorised reviewer challenges
A paper submitted to a journal with a single anonymous peer review policy was assigned to a prospective reviewer, who agreed to undertake the review. The reviewer then sent an email addressed to a number of different research group and institutional mailing lists calling for volunteers to review the paper. The reviewer attached the PDF of the paper, which had been downloaded from the submission…