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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…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    How to deal with obvious but disclosed conflict of interest

    We are dealing with a paper which contains an obvious but disclosed conflict of interest. The paper has two authors who are company employees (one is the CEO). The study does not directly involve their product (a medical device) but does directly involve the assessment of the broader medical service which it supports. The results of their study are favourable toward the company. All company aff…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Call for retraction of a commentary

    A journal received two emails from different individuals, both critical of a commentary published in the journal. One cited serious errors, the other noted inaccurate statements, incorrect literature citations and fundamental flaws regarding misinterpretations or over-interpretations which could affect public health. The second email also cited the potential for the commentary to be used for (u…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Citing a retracted paper

    Our journal has recently retracted three articles after one author was found by their institution to have fabricated data and destroyed evidence. It appears that the one author acted alone; no evidence has been found of complicity by coauthors, and the institution found some evidence suggesting that the one author defrauded their coauthors. We would like to know whether future articles can cite…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Critical comment and conflict of interest

    Journal A received an article by Dr X (Article 1) commenting on another author’s work (Dr. Y) which had been published in Journal A and another journal (Journal B) of a different publisher. Because the scientific arguments were involved, and because the articles being criticised had been cited many times in the literature, the Editors of Journal A rejected Dr X's request to publish the work as…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Conflicts of interest, corrections, and student research

    A journal usually publishes one student essay each issue. In a recent issue it published a student essay in support of a controversial but lucrative set of interventions. The paper declared no conflicts of interests and only listed two names in the acknowledgements section without describing their role in the manuscript.   The author had been studying an MSc when the first manuscrip…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Should stockholders of a pharmaceutical industry declare conflicts of interest in a research paper?

    An article was published in Journal A, investigating the efficacy and safety of generic medicine A. The authors did not declare any conflicts of interest. Generic medicine A is manufactured by company A. Before publication in journal A, the same authors published another study in journal B as a preliminary report. No conflicts of interest were declared. In a recently published art…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Using the name of a scientific society inappropriately

    A journal published an article about clinical recommendations for a condition that supposedly was the result of a consensus between two scientific societies of different medical specialties. The article underwent peer review and no problems were identified at that stage. However, about one month after publication the journal was contacted by one of the scientific societies raising concerns that…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Editor as author

    A publisher was contacted by an editor-in-chief of one of their journals. The editor-in-chief wanted to submit an article written by themselves and one of the journal editorial board members. The article related to treatment provided by the editor to a patient, who was also the coauthor of the paper.    The publisher was concerned about the ethical issues that would need to be addre…
  • Case
    On-going

    Undeclared author conflict of interest

    A journal published a study related to a pilot programme run by an online mental health support resource which, at the time of publication, had a for-profit spinoff. At the time of the publication, this resource would share “anonymised” user data with the spinoff to create and market customer service software. Although this practice of sharing data has since been stopped, the authors of the man…
  • Case
    Case 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…
  • Case
    Case 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…
  • Case
    On-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…
  • Case
    Case 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…
  • Case
    On-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…
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Managing an editor’s undisclosed conflict of interest in a published article

    An opinion piece on a polarising political and technological topic was published. A discussion ensued on social media, and shortly after, the publisher received a formal complaint stating that the editor-in-chief of the journal, who had managed the peer review process for the manuscript, had a conflict of interest and should not have made the final acceptance decision. When the publishing team…
  • Forum discussion topics

    Editorial conflicts of interest

    March 2022 Watch the introduction to the topic "Editorial conflicts of interest" with COPE Council member, Itamar Ashkenazi.
  • Case
    Case Closed

    Authorship of a commentary

    An associate editor invited a commentary to be written by one of the peer reviewers. When the commentary was submitted, the associate editor was a co-author. There could be the appearance of a conflict in the decision to accept the article on which the commentary was based if the associate editor is an author on the commentary. Question for the Forum
  • Forum discussion topics

    Ethical considerations around book publishing

    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…
  • Translated resources

    El autor solicita que ciertos expertos no participen en el proceso editorial: caso

    Un autor potencial se puso en contacto con la oficina editorial de una revista para solicitar que ciertos expertos que participaron en la elaboración de guías sobre un tema particular no participasen en la revisión de su artículo. El autor nombró específicamente a ciertos de estos expertos, entre los que se incluía a miembros del consejo editorial de la revista. El autor justificó su sol…

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