Forum discussion topics

… */ September 2023 Watch the int…

September 2022 Watch the introduction to the topic "Ethical aspects of conference proceedings" with COPE Council member, Howard Browman.

October 2021 A recent survey in which we asked COPE members to vote on the diversity, equity and inclusion topics they would like to discuss, bias in peer review was voted the topic of most interest, so we devoted the October 2021 COPE Forum topic to it, where Forum participants discussed the issues. While this important topic aligns…

June 2021 When and how to involve multiple journals and publishers in dealing with complaints from whistleblowers Complaints received from whistleblowers can develop into large investigations with multiple journals, editors, and publishers involved. Such complaints may involve many articles from a single author group or multiple author…

March 2021 Periodically, COPE gets requests for the development of discussion documents, guidance and flowcharts on publication ethics issues related to book publishing. Many of our members publish both journals and books, and a number of these members reference COPE guidance on journal publishing and ethics as providing useful information on p…

September 2020 Increasingly, across the research publishing landscape, publishers are seeing large scale manipulation of the publication process. The production of fraudulent papers at scale via alleged ‘paper mills’ is one such manipulation. Participants discussed this at the COPE Forum, September 2020. Paper mills Pape…

March 2020 Peer reviewers are asked to contribute intellectual work to assess and improve scholarly publications. As with all work, the quality and characteristics of peer reviews vary. Editors responsibilities include support not only to the peer reviewers who typically volunteer the time and knowledge but also to the authors, who reasonably should expect non-conflicted…

June 2020 Are there differences in gender and diversity issues in arts, humanities, and social sciences (AHSS) in peer review from other disciplines? Participants discussed this topic at the COPE Forum, June 2020.  Language, quality, diversity and inclusivity in AHSS In a study by COPE in collaboration with Taylor & Francis…

Two trends have recently come together within scholarly publication; open review, and the desire to give credit to reviewers. At the convergence are organizations like Publons and Academic Karma who wish to openly acknowledge the work of peer-reviewers by recording, not only the amount, but also, in some circumstances, the content of individuals’ peer-review activity. Academics may view service…