- Guidelines
A short guide to ethical editing for new editors
This short guide aims to summarise the key principles, tasks and relationships of the journal editor role. Becoming an editor of a journal is an exciting but daunting task, especially if you are working alone without day to day contact with editorial colleagues. You may have encountered several different processes, systems and ways of working in your experiences with journals, as author, review… - Guidelines
Guidance for Editors: research, audit and service evaluations
Regulations regarding what type of study requires ethical approval vary worldwide. In some countries all studies require ethical approval but in others not. This may lead to submission to journals of manuscripts relating to such studies that do not satisfy the journal’s normal requirement for independent ethical approval, and rejection of the manuscript because of misunderstanding of local regu… - Guidelines
Guidelines for the Board of Directors of Learned Society Journals
This guidance has been incorporated into new COPE guidelines: Managing the relationships between society owned journals, their society, and publishers … - CaseOn-going
Authors request withdrawal of a 19-year old article
We have been approached by the authors of an article published about 19 years ago stating that they have found an error in a mathematical proof in their research. As a result, although the main theorem proposed in the paper should still be true, they would need to completely revise the text and intend in the longer run to find a new proof. They recognise that the paper as published cannot stand… - CaseOn-going
Plagiarism by a possible predatory journal
An article published in a journal in 2023 appears to have been plagiarised in a possible predatory journal but the publishers are unable to get a response from the predatory journal or affiliated Institute. The article (Article A) was submitted to Journal X in 2022 and published early in 2023. The authors reached out to the Journal after finding that another article dated from 2021 (Art… - Forum discussion topics
Claiming institutional affiliations
December 2023 Watch the introduction to "Claiming institutional affiliations" with Ana Marušić - Seminars and webinars
Image manipulation
In this session, Jana Christopher, Image Data Integrity Analyst at FEBS Press, offers an authoritative overview of current issues and tools in detecting image manipulation. This discussion was part of 'Publication Misconduct and Fraud Day' hosted by COPE during Publication Integrity Week 2023.… - Seminars and webinars
Inclusive language: policing or progressive?
This session examines the potential benefits and dangers of language use policies. This discussion is one of eleven sessions hosted by COPE during Publication Integrity Week 2023. "It is extremely powerful has really made me think. Highly recommended for anyone interested in DEI in pu… - 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… - Seminars and webinars
Caste and publishing: an ethics gap?
In this talk, Gaurev Pathania, Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (Eastern Mennonite University), speaks about the often overlooked category of caste as a global form of discrimination. Anubhav Pradhan, COPE Council Member, hosts this talk and discussion… - CaseCase Closed
Request for retraction due to alleged ethical misconduct in a grant application
A journal received a request from University A for a published paper to be retracted, citing ethical issues with the grant application submitted by an author from University B. The journal is satisfied that the rigorous editorial processes required by the journal were followed prior to publication and asked for specific details of the ethical breach; evidence that all authors on the publication… - 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… - 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… - CaseCase Closed
Ethical issues of responding to government agency request for information
A journal published several articles, reviewed by reviewers recommended by the author, that were identified as suspect. After a thorough investigation, the journal determined that almost all of the peer review responses for these articles were fabricated - the result of identity misappropriation and fraud. The journal was subsequently contacted by two government agencies of the country… - CaseCase Closed
Enquiry regarding copyright/retractions
A journal received a paper that had previously been retracted from another publisher’s journal as a result of malpractice in the peer review process (a result of reviewer/editor misconduct rather than actions on the part of the authors). Having reviewed various sources of guidance, it would appear that there is some precedent for re-publication of retracted papers (suitably corrected or… - CaseCase Closed
Image manipulation case
A journal was contacted by a non-anonymous whistleblower pointing out problems with two figures in a published paper. The journal wrote to the authors, who provided them with films for the gels and an explanation and additional figure data for the histology image, where a mistake was made when assembling the images. The journal published an erratum and informed the whistleblower. Subsequ… - CaseCase Closed
Publication of an article accepted 5 years ago
Several years ago a previous editor of a journal accepted an article for publication following peer review. The current editor feels that the article should not have been accepted in the first instance, but rejected instead. After acceptance, the article was sent to a copy editor who was scheduled to work on it. However, the process was stopped by the previous editor and the copy editor. The la… - CaseCase Closed
Should a journal disclose peer reviewer names?
A journal received a manuscript in July concerning the conditions surrounding the ending of an individual’s contract of employment. Following peer review and revision, the manuscript was accepted and published in October of the same year. Two years later, the journal received a letter from a lawyer representing a client who was suing the former employer discussed in the article. The author of t… - CaseCase Closed
Author refuses to comply with editorial review prior to production and publication
The Editor-in-Chief of a journal received a message from a corresponding author of a brief communication, stating that the proposed editorial edits were beyond typical formatting edits at this stage. They felt said many edits were not appropriate, would need further response and suggested holding this article (which had already been in process with the journal for over a year) for the next edit… - CaseCase Closed
Author withdraws manuscript upon payment request
We occasionally come across a situation when an author withdraws a manuscript upon receiving a payment request. We consider this irresponsible, when much of the publication process has been completed by editors and reviewers. We request authors to provide payment details after the manuscript has been accepted for publication. The fees policy is published on our website and we require that the a…