- Case
Potentially unethical publication
A new Editor was appointed to a society journal in a minority medical specialty. An officer of the society immediately handed him an anonymous letter from a reader of the journal complaining that an article recently published was unethical. The Editor is a personal friend both of the previous editor who accepted the paper, and the author of the paper. The paper is by a single author who gives n… - CaseOn-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… - CaseCase Closed
Paper submitted for publication without consent or knowledge of co-authors
…article to the ‘correct’ journal (journal B) by co-author A. LCO agreed to the amicable proposal of the LO of institute Y, and sent the publisher a statement on 21 December 2012 in which he disagreed that the case is merely an authorship dispute, but states that the foremost concern is the declaration that the corresponding author signed with research institute X which in his eyes is “wider than… - CaseOn-going
Deceased author and author delaying publication
The journal accepted a manuscript for publication with two authors. One of the authors died before signing the copyright. This manuscript is now ready for galley proof approval from the surviving author. Proofs were sent to the surviving author and the author who died as normal because the production editor assigned to this manuscript did not know that one of the authors had died. After… - CaseOn-going
Unresponsive authors delaying publication
The journal received a submission which proceeded through peer review and was recommended for publication. The authors responded to the revision letter, providing a detailed itemised list of changes and revised their manuscript accordingly. The revised manuscript was subsequently accepted for publication. The normal process for articles in this journal is that when papers are accepted a… - CaseCase Closed
How to deal with obvious but disclosed conflict of interest
…employees? If we ask that some authors be removed, does that create additional conflicts (eg failure to comply with authorship policies and may not overcome the COI if the remaining authors do not alter the paper)? … - Discussion documents
Best practice in theses publishing. March 2017
Introduction Traditionally, theses for higher degrees were published by universities in hard copy only. Now increasingly, these are also archived and may be made freely available via university repositories. They may or may not have associated licenses such as those from Creative Commons which also allow reuse. Questions have arisen at COPE forums and other venues… - CaseOn-going
Excessive self-citation in a book chapter
The case concerns an introductory chapter in a book. The publisher was first contacted about potential misconduct as part of a broader investigation into an academic who was a coauthor on an introductory chapter in a book. The publisher's subsequent investigation identified excessive self-citation in the work (one of the coauthors is named as an author on 12 out of 16 referenced works).… - CaseOn-going
Salami slicing/duplicate publication
An article with four authors was published in journal A. The same article with a slight change in the title and one additional author, was published three months later in journal B. The authors had submitted the article to both journals at the same time. The number of study subjects in the two articles were the same, with a very slight difference in the wordings of the objective o… - CaseCase Closed
Dispute between two authors
A manuscript was submitted by author A to our journal. The content of the paper was controversial. We sent this manuscript for peer review by two clinical reviewers. We wrote back to author A requesting major revisions to address the concerns and issues raised by the reviewers. A revised paper was submitted and accepted for publication. Because the article was controversial, mini-comment… - CaseOn-going
Data fabrication, lack of ethical approval, withdrawal of paper and publication in another journal
…such possible misconduct. Essentially the complexity lies in the triangle between two journals and two institutions as well as in the possibility that two aspects may be wrong: the ethics and the data. The change in authorship for the same manuscript in the two submissions is also significant. Even though the paper was withdrawn from my journal, should I pursue the matter with the relevant officers… - 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… - Seminars and webinars
European Seminar 2019: COPE retraction guidelines
Session on retractions at the European Seminar 2019, with speaker Howard Browman who shares 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: Watch now - Research
Authors’ awareness of publication ethics: An international survey 2009
…ignorance rather than wilful deceit. Publication ethics are rarely taught. We are conducting an international survey to measure the level of awareness of key ethical issues in publishing amongst a large sample of currently active researchers submitting articles to several BMJ journals. We intend this study to be one of the largest undertaken involving a variety of ethical issues on authorship, conflicts… - CaseCase Closed
Author non-disclosure by editor in chief
Please note, this case is being submitted by the Publishing Director of the journal based on the advice of a senior COPE member because it relates to the conduct of the editor in chief of the journal. The editor in chief of the journal is aware that the case is being submitted. A letter of complaint was submitted in November 2009 relating to an editorial published in one of our journals,… - Case
Concern about reporting of a trial and also its DSMB
Some of the members of the Forum suggested that perhaps the journal should have a formal policy that DSMBs should be independent and not involved in the study in any way. The Forum questioned whether these authors fulfil the criteria for authorship, as outlined in the ICJME guidelines. One opinion was that perhaps the paper should not have been rejected until the outcome of the investigation… - 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… - Case
Sanitising a misleading statement
Author A published a paper in Journal X, which presented evidence of failure by another research group to declare a serious conflict of interest in a paper that had been published some years before in Journal Y. This conflict of interest centred around the undeclared involvement of a third party with a vested interest. Evidence for this was presented in the form of correspondence from the third… - Discussion documents
Guest edited collections best practice
…How to recognise potential authorship problems COPE infographic Suspected ethical problem in a submitted manuscript COPE flowchart - Case
Arm twisting an editor
_ If junior authors could not publish without the consent of their superiors, this raises the matter of authorship, whereby some of the authors are not acknowledged for their work, whether for credit or accountability to the readers. _ The work itself might be regarded differently because the source of the information would not be clear. In some ways this was analogous to pharmaceutical…