- Flowcharts
All Flowcharts
…COPE Flowcharts COPE flowcharts offer a step by step process, for practical use on handling different aspects of publication ethics issues. Allegations of misconduct Reviewer suspected to have appropriated an author’s ideas or data … - Flowcharts
Changes in authorship: Addition of extra author – before publication
COPE's guidance, as a flowchart, on the addition of an extra author before publication. Changes in authorship: Addition of extra author - before publication - Guidelines
Ethics toolkit for a successful editorial office
…A COPE guide To help ensure the integrity of the scholarly record and the publication process, editorial offices should define and implement best practices in publication ethics. This COPE guide is a comprehensive toolkit that explains expected ethical practices in scholarly publishing, and highlights resources for editorial offices to develop their codes of ethical conduct and practic… - Guidelines
How to handle authorship disputes: a guide for new researchers
Guidance for new researchers on good authorship practice, and advice on how to deal with authorship issues as they arise. How to handle authorship disputes: a guide for new researchers - Forum discussion topics
Ethical considerations around watchlists
March 2024 Ethical considerations of using and maintaining watchlists Watch the introduction to "Ethical considerations of using and maintaining watchlists" with Dan Kulp: - CaseOn-going
Request for removal from author list for reasons of religious belief
We have been contacted by an author of a published article who has requested to be removed from the author list. The author is third in the author list and is neither a lead author nor a corresponding author. The CRediT statement for the article reports that the author’s contribution to the work included investigation, validation, formal analysis and data curation. The author says that t… - Forum discussion topics
Claiming institutional affiliations
December 2023 Watch the introduction to "Claiming institutional affiliations" with Ana Marušić - Seminars and webinars
Post-publication corrections
This discussion panel features Elizabeth Moylan (Senior Manager, Research Integrity Strategy & Policy at Wiley), Mark Hooper (Manager, Research Ethics and Integrity at the Queensland University of Technology), and Jennifer Byrne (publication integrity ‘sleuth’ and the University of Sydney), talking about dealing with issues that arise after publication has taken p… - Seminars and webinars
Introduction to publication ethics and the COPE ethics toolkit
In this session, COPE Trustee Trevor Lane and Council Member Siri Lunde Stromme (co-chair of the COPE Membership subcommittee) introduce the basic principles of publication ethics and how to use guidance and tools available to ensure publication ethics is embedded in a journal's day to day practice. This discussion is one of eleven sessions hosted by COPE durin… - CaseOn-going
Author retracts request to be removed from author list
An author of a coauthored article published in our journal ten years ago contacted the outgoing editors with a request to have their name removed. The author in question is Dr A of University 1 and they are the paper’s first author. Their stated reason for doing so was that they had recently discovered errors in a table in the paper. The second author on the paper, Dr B, provided the original d… - CaseOn-going
How to handle offers of promotion of authorship for sale
We have been approached via email by a company promoting authorship for sale. The email describes the service as providing 'co-authorship' of an existing article that has been submitted for publication in an indexed journal. The articles cover a range of disciplines and the company claims a high success rate for publication. Question for COPE Council: What steps sho… - CaseCase Closed
Ukrainian authors request retraction of article in Russian conference proceedings
A journal has been contacted by a group of authors from Ukraine who wish to retract their article because of acute ethical issues in relation to the war with Russia. The authors are employees of a research institute in Ukraine. When preparing their article they were not fully informed about the country of the organisers of the conference. They are concerned that participation in a Russian confe… - Discussion documents
Dealing with concerns about the integrity of published research
This guidance presents practical considerations for managing scenarios where editors are contacted with ethical concerns about the integrity of published research. In recent years, reporting of ethical concerns about research publications has become more prevalent, and the issues identified have become more complex. This includes situations where multiple concerns are raised simultaneous… - CaseCase Closed
Should we allow pseudonymous authorship?
We are handling a manuscript that is now ready for acceptance. During the review process we noticed that one coauthor had the surname "999" and this coauthor and two others had the affiliation "Independent researcher". We asked the corresponding author what this meant. Their answer was that the names of two of these three authors, including "999", were pseudonyms. The paper was based on a compe… - CaseOn-going
Submission of article by ghost author
A corresponding author and two coauthors submitted a paper to our journal. The article was published after due process of reviewing etc. After publishing the paper, a student contacted us to say that the paper was totally derived from their Master's thesis. The journal's Research Ethics Committee heard the case and it was confirmed that the paper had been extracted from the thesis. All the auth… - CaseOn-going
Possible image manipulation
A whistleblower posted on PubPeer regarding some apparently overlapping images in an article published several years earlier. To the research integrity team there appeared similarities, enough to warrant a request for the original images / raw data from the authors. The authors said they no longer had access to the original data and have denied any editing was made to the images. We commissione… - Seminars and webinars
How to get started: COPE resources
…Presentation to PAMJE Annual Convention March 2023 COPE Council Member, Jigisha Patel, presented at the Philippines Association of Medical Journal Editors (PAMJE) Annual Convention discussing how COPE tools can be practically used to help journal editors address various ethical publication issues. Jigisha began by introducing COPE and COPE resources, with… - CaseOn-going
Previous publication cannot be verified
Publisher A received a concern suggesting that a coauthored paper published in one of their journals had previously been published by the complainant in an industry in-house journal (now disbanded). All three individuals had worked for the company which sponsored the in-house journal. The publisher asked for a contact at the company so that they could request information about their publication… - CaseCase Closed
Questionable authorship information
We have a paper in production that presents refutations of common criticisms made of a domestic cleaning or skin care ingredient. The majority of the authors are scientific research officers of a firm that sells products containing the ingredient. One other author is stated to be associated with a university but does not appear to hold a PhD. It is stated in the corrected proofs that this in… - CaseCase Closed
Seven plagiarized manuscripts in one month by the same corresponding author
In one month we have received 11 manuscripts (9 case reports, 1 original study and 1 letter) written by authors from a European Union country. The manuscripts were submitted by the same corresponding author (author A) who was also the first author in all of the 11 manuscripts. Another author was the second author (author B) in 10 of the manuscripts. There were two other authors (authors C and D…