- Case
Competing interest issue
An online post-publication literature evaluation service, aiming to highlight the best articles in medicine, received an evaluation of an article on which the evaluator was listed as an author on PubMed. The editor queried the evaluation and the evaluator replied explaining s/he had no involvement with the study but had commented on it. When the editor looked at the full text HTML version on th… - Forum discussion topics
Ethical considerations around watchlists
March 2024 Ethical considerations of using and maintaining watchlists Watch the introduction to "Ethical considerations of using and maintaining watchlists" with Dan Kulp: - CaseCase Closed
Handling self-admissions of fraud
The Forum noted that this was a very unusual case, both fascinating and alarming. At its heart it would appear to an authorship dispute, and the journal was correct in involving the institution. The Forum suggested contacting all of the authors and asking for their input. It would seem that the only clear way of resolving the issue is to replicate the study and try to reproduce the… - Case
Is retraction justified because of an author dispute over permission to use data?
Author X recently published a paper in Journal Y and has asked for the paper to be retracted. The reason given is that part of the data presented in the paper was published without the permission of a colleague, who is not listed as an author of the paper (and probably does not qualify for full authorship). This colleague is now seeking to publish the data in another journal and it is implied… - Case
Plagiarism and possible fraud
…to the co-authors’ head of institution as they seemed to have taken complimentary authorship. - The journal should retract the article if it felt that there was sufficient evidence to suggest fraud; but if not, it should certainly publish a notice of concern.… - Seminars and webinars
Webinar 2022: Managing paper mills
…href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/renee-hoch-a53a4429/">Renee Hoch, Managing Editor leading the PLOS Publication Ethics team, spoke about managing of paper mills from the perspective of PLOS with a review of the tactics used by paper mills around content, authorship and peer review and how PLOS identify and investigate manipulation of the publication process. A recent case, investigated by PLOS, was sparked by a red flag to do with author… - Case
Potential duplicate publication
…Journal C cited each other. The three papers had published literally days apart. The lead author is an overlapping author but the papers’ authorships are mostly driven by the site that the data come from. The editor of Journal B contacted the editor of Journal C as well as the corresponding authors of both the Journal B and C papers. It was difficult to contact the editor of journal C who was handing… - 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… - Discussion documents
Who 'owns' peer reviews? September 2017
…considered to meet the requirements for an “original work of authorship”, and therefore, the reviewer holds copyright, unless they expressly transfer copyright by written agreement to the publisher. Concepts of “openness” in peer review should not be confused with a “lack of confidentiality”. Any confidentiality assured during the review process should be maintained, upheld and protected… - Case
A patient was given an experimental course of complementary medicine when a standard treatment was available
A case report was submitted to a journal, describing a patient with a very serious, curable infectious disease who had been given complementary medicine (plant extract) rather than the standard treatment. A search of the literature indicated that the authors were known to support complementary therapies. The alternative treatment was not evidence based. The case took place in a country were the… - Case
Alleged plagiarism
…one specific point and the nearly identical sections had not been referenced. The editor of Journal A wrote to the author asking for an explanation. The author of the paper in Journal B works in a faculty of law. He discussed the two papers with colleagues who agreed that this was a violation of authorship and perhaps even copyright. He wanted to know how the journal intended to remedy the… - 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… - Forum discussion topics
Artificial intelligence (AI) and fake papers
…various ethical questions surrounding the use of AI for both fake paper creation and the production of papers based on valid research. We aim to discuss the aspects of authorship, bias, originality, and using AI tools to counteract AI fraud. During this COPE Forum (23 March 2023) we started a discussion about these ethical issues, which COPE will use to develop a discussion document on this… - CaseCase Closed
Use of secondary data without proper attribution
…were the primary researchers. Questions for COPE Council Is this a form of plagiarism? Is it appropriate to claim authorship of research by not disclosing the source of secondary data (presumably data owned by the institution)? … - CaseOn-going
Ethics approval for survey design
…assessment or evaluation, or for quality approval purposes. There are instances where the results of such survey analysis are appropriate to publish and exempt from IRB review, or for the authorship team to seek IRB approval for dissemination after data collection if an unexpected or novel relationship is found. However, in this instance, there is no clear documentation of the intent for a specific… - CaseClosed: author misconduct
Falsified references
An article was submitted to my journal and was sent for peer review. An editorial board member realised that a number of the references were incorrect: publication dates had been changed to make them more current. The author was contacted by email and telephone who said he/she had a number of students working for him (who were not listed as authors or in the acknowledgment) and they must… - Seminars and webinars
Seminar 2021: Keynote address
The keynote address opened the COPE Seminar 2021. Taking place over a week, the online seminar included a series of nine sessions, with speakers invited to share their experiences. - CaseClosed: author misconduct
Duplicate publication in possibly four papers
…for the most part, but one of its authors is also an author of two of the duplicated papers. To try to make this clear, the authorship of the four papers is as follows, where each letter indicates an author:1) A, B, C, D2) A, B, C, E3) A, B, F, G, H4) C, I, J, K, L The editor in chief of our journal wrote to the authors (A, B, and C) telling them that they had violated… - CaseCase Closed
Nuisance author
…You can listen to the podcast of this case from the menu on the right An author submitted a paper which went through the review process and was rejected. He is now sending abusive emails to me, the editor, and spamming an enormous number of people in his research area and the government (he even tried to contact the royal office) as a protest. He continues to submit his paper (over 20… - Seminars and webinars
Artificial intelligence and peer review
…-post-was-chatgpt-set-up-to-fail-choosing-the-right-tools-and-the-right-prompts-is-essential-for-llm-discovery/">Was Chat GPT set up to fail? Dustin Smith Related COPE resources AI and authorship tools COPE position statement 2023 Artificial intelligence in decision making COPE…