- CaseOn-going
How to respond to a reader's repeated concerns
A meta-analysis was published in a journal ahead of print, and then subsequently in print. Several months later, the journal was contacted by a faculty member at a university not connected with the study. The reader outlined three general concerns with the meta-analysis. The concerns were discussed by the editorial team, including the statistical editor, and it was decided that the overall resu… - Discussion documents
COPE Forum 4 September 2020: paper mills
Systematic manipulation of the publishing process via “paper mills” 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. Paper mills are profit oriented, unofficial and po… - CaseCase Closed
Is approval needed for a social media survey?
An author has contacted the journal enquiring about the need for institutional review board approval for a survey. The survey is not derived from a specific institution but rather out of the personal interest of the author(s) who are targeting a point of wide scientific interest. The authors have a broad reach in social media. The topic is of significant interest to the field, and there… - CaseOn-going
Sharing by a reviewer on social media
A journal operated double blind peer-review, so the reviewers do not know the identity of the authors, and vice versa. However, the anonymity of the authors is not guaranteed, as the reviewers may discover the identity of the authors (because of the area of research, references, writing style, etc). But rarely can the authors identify the reviewers. The journal received a request from a… - CaseOn-going
Institution wants to retract despite ongoing legal proceedings
The case has been with two publishers for more than a year. Journal A at publisher A published article A by author A, affiliated to institution A and institution B (in another country), and author B affiliated to institution B. Journal B at publisher B then published article B, by the same authors and affiliations. The two articles are on closely related research. Shortly after publicati… - Discussion documents
Predatory publishing
Much has been written about ‘predatory publishing’ over the past decade. In this discussion document, COPE will describe the basic phenomenon, identify the key issues, describe the impact on the various stakeholders involved, analyse proposed interventions and solutions, and present COPE’s perspective on addressing the problem going forward. This discussion will synonymously refer to predatory… - Seminars and webinars
European Seminar 2019: Exploring Publication Ethics Issues in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences
We set out to ask: •Are AHSS editors aware of COPE and how can we best communicate our services to them? •What issues are they dealing with that are problematic and what do they need in terms of support? •What is COPE not currently providing? Respondents were asked to report issues that were most widespread and frequent: 1) Addressing langu… - Seminars and webinars
European Seminar 2019: Analysis of retractions, initiators and reasons for retractions
Session on retractions at the European Seminar 2019, chaired by Heather Tierney, COPE Council, presents the results of a study of all retracted papers published in journals processed for the Web of Science (WoS). Thed describes the reasons for retractions, motivation for retraction and who retracts. During the session we also heard from Howard Browman and Catriona Fennell. Links to their presen… - Seminars and webinars
European Seminar 2019: COPE retraction guidelines
Session on retractions at the European Seminar 2019, chaired by Heather Tierney, COPE Council, with a review of the updated Retraction Guidelines from COPE. During the session we also heard from Thed Van Leeuwen and Catriona Fennell. Links to their presentations are below: Thed Van Leeuwen, Senior Researcher, Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), Leiden on the - Seminars and webinars
European Seminar 2019: Retractions, a publisher's perspective
Session on retractions at the European Seminar 2019, chaired by Heather Tierney, COPE Council, with a publisher's perspectives from Catriona Fennell, Director of Publishing Services, Elsevier. During the session we also heard from Howard Browman and Thed Van Leeuwen. Links to their presentations are below: Howard Browman, COPE Council, with the - Seminars and webinars
North American Seminar 2019: In the aftermath of authorship violations in philosophy
Michael Dougherty, Professor of Philosophy, Ohio Dominican University speaks about authorship violations in philosophy including: using pseudonyms in philosophy and how to avoid post-publication pseudonym surprises. why we should be concerned about plagiarism, types of plagiarism in philosophy and what are the options for whistleblowers? What editors and publishers… - Seminars and webinars
European Seminar 2019: Plenary on predatory publishing
Perspectives on predatory publishing and thoughts about solutions with Deborah Poff, COPE Chair.… - Seminars and webinars
WCRI 2019: Preprints and their place in the publication ethics landscape
While preprints have existed in some disciplines for decades, preprints and preprint platforms are becoming more and more common across the entire landscape of publishing. The total output from preprints remains low in comparison to published journal articles, however, preprints are growing rapidly across many disciplines. Preprints also offer some interesting questions and potential concerns o… - CaseCase Closed
Withdrawal of paper at proof stage
An original paper was submitted to our journal. After peer review, the authors were requested to revise the paper, and the revision was submitted back to the journal. Our manuscript editor accepted the paper. The paper was scheduled for publication 3 months later after copyediting was completed. We informed the corresponding author about acceptance of the paper and sent them the typeset… - Research
Exploring publication ethics in the arts, humanities, and social sciences: A COPE study 2019
In early 2019 COPE, with the support of Routledge (part of the Taylor & Francis Group), commissioned primary research with Shift Learning to better understand the publication ethics landscape for editors working on journals within the arts, humanities, and social sciences. The research used a two-stage methodology: first exploring the issues qualitatively via two online focus groups with a… - Seminars and webinars
North American Seminar 2019: Women also know history
Karin Wulf, Professor of History and well-known “Chef” in the Scholarly Kitchen introduced us to the terms “manels” and “whanels” (all male panels and all white panels) and provided some suggestions to help identify a more diverse group of experts from which to draw authors, reviewers, editorial board memb… - Discussion documents
COPE Forum 11 February 2019: Diversity and inclusion in research publishing
It is widely recognised that teams and organisations in all sectors of society perform better and make better decisions when they embrace diversity and inclusion in their culture and, particularly, among their leadership. Diversity refers to having a wide range of human differences in the composition of a team. Inclusion, inclusivity, or inclusiveness refers to ensuring that all team members fe… - CaseCase Closed
Possible plagiarism
We received an email from a whistleblower notifying us about possible plagiarism in two chapters published by us, both authored by the same two authors. The whistleblower accused the authors of substantial plagiarism. In both chapters there were, indeed, certain unattributed parts of the text, although the majority was properly attributed. Some of the unattributed parts were authored by… - CaseCase Closed
Dispute arising from peer review of a rejected comment and published correction
In 2016, group A published manuscript X in our journal. In early 2017, group B submitted a comment critical of the published manuscript. Following peer review, in accordance with the journal’s then active policy, the comment was rejected from further consideration. The policy allowed for the author of the original article to be one of the peer reviewers of the comment. The lead author of… - CaseCase Closed
Increased number of casual submissions
We have experienced a sudden spurt in casual submissions of poor quality articles. We believe this is because authors wish to show that they have submitted articles which are under consideration at reputable journals. While any journal or editor would be happy to see increased numbers of submissions, sadly, most are of very poor quality in all respects. Most are very casually prepared wi…