- Guidelines
Guidelines for the Board of Directors of Learned Society Journals
The journals of Learned Societies are an important part of the scientific literature. Their management should be of the highest quality and ethically sound. COPE Guidelines are formal COPE policy and are intended to advise editors and publishers on expected publication ethics practice. - 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… - Research
Paper mills research
COPE and STM undertook a study with Maverick Publishing Services, using data from publishers, to understand the scale of the problem of paper mills. The study also involved interviewing stakeholders - research investigators, publishers, and Retraction Watch. All stakeholders believe that the issue of paper mills is a real threat to the integrity of the scholarly record. Collective effor… - Discussion documents
Diversity and inclusivity
This COPE discussion document begins a process of addressing the wide range of themes, challenges and changes required to establish a more inclusive and diverse scholarly publishing community. COPE welcomes comments which add to the ongoing debate. - CaseOn-going
Institutions paying authors to be named on papers
Some academic institutions are paying authors for the name of the institution to be included in the manuscript so that the institution has an increased number of publications in a given year. The institution gives the author payment and the author terms it as ‘funding’ or ‘grant’, which is not the case. The author publishes the research article in a journal with two affiliations and explains in… - Seminars and webinars
Seminar 2021: Driving diversity, equity, and inclusion to shape the future of publication ethics
A summary of recent COPE activities in the area of diversity and equity, followed by three talks giving great insights, guidance and practical advice on collecting diversity data from publishing activity, creating diverse and representative editorial boards, and managing allegations of discriminatory behaviour. Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) are integral… - Seminars and webinars
Seminar 2021: Trustworthy AI for the future of publishing (Members only)
This page is for COPE Members only until April 2022. The new COPE Discussion document “Artificial intelligence (AI) in decision making”, was launched at the COPE webinar, discussing ethics issues relating to the application of artificial intellig… - Seminars and webinars
Seminar 2021: Introduction to publication ethics
This workshop-type event was designed for new and inexperienced editors, with information about COPE and its resources, including COPE’s eLearning course and audit tool. The overview of COPE is followed by discussion of four cases on different issues, in a session with polls and feedback from attendees. The discussion of cases includes how to use COPE flowcharts and o… - Seminars and webinars
Seminar 2021: Authorship for sale
…How do we deal with the growing problem of paper mills? The webinar panelists discussed the prevalence of paper mills, the systematic manipulation of the publication process by individuals or organised groups to guarantee publication, often through sale of authorship or manipulating article acceptance. This session is one of - Forum discussion topics
Coordinating multi-journal complaints
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… - Translated resources
El editor y los revisores solicitan que se cite su trabajo: caso
La oficina editorial tuvo conocimiento de una carta de decisión en la que un editor solicitaba a un autor que citase un artículo publicado por el propio editor. Una investigación en mayor profundidad destapó un patrón de comportamiento preocupante: el editor solicitaba en las cartas (incluidos también los comentarios de los revisores) que se añadiesen citaciones de sus trabajos en más de 50 cas… - Translated resources
Proceso de revisión por pares comprometido en artículos publicados: caso
Al percatarse de un alto volumen de envíos del autor A, el editor X mostró su preocupación sobre los revisores sugeridos por el autor y sus comentarios. El autor A había sugerido en la mayoría de los casos los mismos revisores para todos los envíos, los revisores sugeridos tenían direcciones de correo electrónico imposibles de verificar, los comentarios se devolvían muy rápido (en 24 horas) y e… - Translated resources
El autor de un artículo rechazado nombra y critica de forma pública al revisor por pares: caso
El autor principal de un artículo rechazado para su publicación identificó y nombró de forma pública a uno de los cuatro revisores durante una entrevista con los medios de comunicación tras publicar el artículo en otra revista. El autor dio a entender en la entrevista y más tarde en Twitter que el artículo había sido rechazado por la revisión de este revisor y afirmó que el revisor no había rev… - Forum discussion topics
Predatory publishing: next steps and where do we go from here?
December 2020 Since COPE drafted a discussion paper on the topic of predatory publishing in 2019, many more scholarly papers have been published on various aspects of this issue so there is no lack of research into the practice. However, while resear… - Forum discussion topics
Systematic manipulation of the publishing process via “paper mills”
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… - 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… - CaseCase Closed
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
The COPE predatory publishing discussion document introduces issues, and analyses potential solutions, around predatory publications. COPE welcomes comments which add to this ongoing debate. Common features of the phenomenon include deception and lack of quality controls, and there are a range of warning signs to look for when assessing a journal. Problems for authors, readers, and other… - 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…