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Discussion documents

When aspects of publication ethics are particularly fast-moving or controversial COPE cannot always provide detailed guidance. The COPE discussion documents aim to stimulate discussion rather than tell editors what to do. We hope that, by raising the issues, we can contribute to the debate within the scholarly publishing community and work towards agreement or definition of difficult problems.

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  • Discussion documents

    Guest edited collections best practice

    "Best practices for guest edited collections" introduces recommendations for journals and publishers for handling collections that are edited by guest editors. The potential risks and ethical issues are highlighted, as well as a checklist for creating guest edited collections, steps to ensure collections are edited according to valid publishing practices and ethical standards, and clarification…
  • Discussion documents

    Who 'owns' peer reviews? September 2017

    This COPE discussion document introduces issues and guidance around the ownership of peer reviews. Questions discussed include: who has ownership of peer review comments; who gets to determine whether a review can be made public, and if so, which parties would be required to consent to its publication. The document also covers whether the sharing of reviewer comments breaches the confidentialit…