- 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: Just ideas? The Status and Future of Publication Ethics in Philosophy
At the 2019 COPE North American Seminar, Rebecca Kennison, from K|N Consultants, presented details of a project which "seeks to foster greater awareness among humanities scholars and editors about ethical issues in philosophy publishing…. [It] acknowledges that research and publication ethics in the humanities are in many ways, and for good reasons, complex matters and that, unlike in t… - CaseCase Closed
Editor and reviewers requiring authors to cite their own work
A staff member in our editorial office noticed a decision letter where a handling editor instructed an author to cite an article published by the handling editor. The staff member wondered if this had happened before and reviewed recent decision letters by that editor. This revealed a concerning pattern of behaviour—the handling editor’s decision letters (including reviewers’ comments) asked au… - CaseOn-going
Stolen article
At acceptance but before publication, we found article A submitted to journal A was highly similar to article B, published 5 months earlier in conference proceedings in journal B by another publisher. The abstracts were nearly identical, but the author lists and affiliations did not overlap. We asked the authors to explain this and they said article A is their own work, but it was inadvertently… - CaseCase Closed
Authorship issues from disbanded consortium
A manuscript was submitted to one of our journals in a special issue. The initial submission included 15 authors with 9 affiliations. The authors were part of a consortium which has now been disbanded. The manuscript was provisionally accepted for publication. At this point, three of the authors requested to be removed from the author list, citing irreconcilable differences with the corr… - CaseOn-going
Unhelpful institution report
An allegation of data fraud was not satisfactorily resolved by correspondence with the authors. We then went to the lead institution and asked for an investigation. Within 10 days we had a report clearing the authors, but interestingly using some of the exact same phrases the authors used in their responses to us. We felt that the report was too superficial and approached the other institution… - CaseCase Closed
Authorship dispute unsatisfactorily resolved by institution
The journal was contacted with a claim to first authorship of a paper currently published online ahead of print. Print publication was put on hold pending the result of the investigation. The claim to first authorship was based on the claimant stating that they had obtained most results published in the paper during their PhD studies under the supervision of the corresponding author, and contri… - CaseCase Closed
Lead author of a research paper disagrees with content of a linked editorial
The author of an accepted research paper (that showed some benefits for a controversial treatment) contacted the journal shortly prior to publication of the paper. It is the policy of our journal not to share commissioned editorials with authors ahead of time. This author had, however, received a copy of the journal press release in preparation for a press briefing. The press release quoted sta… - CaseOn-going
Editor found guilty of research misconduct
A journal appointed a new editor-in-chief to their journal. He had previously been on the editorial board of the journal for 10 years and the editorial registrar for 5 years. During the handover period, it came to the journal’s attention that he was due to appear in front of a tribunal for research fraud. By agreement with the journal, he stepped down until the outcome of the tribunal, and the… - Discussion documents
Addressing ethics complaints from complainants who submit multiple issues
On occasion a journal may get not one, but a series of complaints from the same source. Complaints may be directed at an author, an editor, or the journal in general. If these complaints turn out to be well founded, investigations should proceed as warranted. However, there are also cases where a complainant makes repeated allegations against a journal, editor, or author that turn out to be bas… - CaseCase Closed
Submission of an already published case report
A case report was received at the journal. A covering letter was supplied by the two authors stating “Our work has not been published elsewhere and we have been actively involved in the preparation of the paper. No conflict of interest. Not published elsewhere. Patient consent obtained for case report and images to be published”. Originality is very highly graded in the referee’s marking… - CaseCase Closed
Is it plagiarism to use text verbatim from a manuscript review?
A commentary was reviewed by journal A and rejected. The paper was then submitted and accepted at journal B. Journal B published the commentary. After publication, a reviewer from journal A wrote to journal B with a complaint of plagiarism. Text from his/her review was used in the commentary published in journal B Question(s) for the COPE Forum• How should the editor of jo… - CaseCase Closed
Data manipulation and institute’s internal review
A journal received an enquiry from a reader stating that they had found some discrepancies in the spectra published in the electronic supporting information for a published paper. They suggested that the discrepancies would be consistent with the spectra being manually ‘cleaned’. If this were true, the characterisation and purity of the compounds reported in the paper would be called into quest… - CaseOn-going
Would the loss of a clinical licence in one country impact on the ability to do clinical work in another?
The associate editor of journal X identified author Y on a submission paper as someone who had lost their license to practice due to malpractice. As part of the settlement, author Y had agreed to refrain from providing services to patients. Author Y now resides on a different continent, and the study presented in the submission was apparently carried out in in this continent. There is no mentio… - CaseCase Closed
Withdrawal of accepted manuscript from predatory journal
Our journal has been contacted by an author who would like to submit a review article. The author responded to a request for an invited review from a predatory journal without realizing it was a predatory journal. The author submitted the article only to receive an unexpected invoice and clear evidence of no peer review. The author investigated the journal and then realized the predatory nature… - CaseCase Closed
Suspected unattributed text in a published article
An article was published in July. In October, a corrigendum was published to correct large sections of unattributed text. Two weeks later the journal and publisher received a complaint from a reader who accused the author of the published article of using text from an unpublished collaborative manuscript on which the published author was participating. This participation on the collaborative wo… - Seminars and webinars
North American Seminar 2016: Can you spot a fake? The trends of fake peer reviews
…Download presentation: Can you spot a fake? The trend of fake peer reviews [PDF, 848KB] … - Seminars and webinars
North American Seminar 2016: Who's reviewing the reviewers?
…Download presentation: Who's reviewing the reviewers? [PDF, 740Kb]… - Seminars and webinars
North American Seminar 2016: Peer review manipulation. New challenges and new solutions
…Download presentation: Peer review manipulation. New challenges and new solutions [PDF, 731Kb] … - CaseCase Closed
Institutional investigation of authorship dispute
We received a claim that several authors were removed from an article published in one of our journals before the article was submitted. None of those said to have been removed were acknowledged. The claimant requested retraction. They said the article was previously submitted to other journals, listing them as an author. They provided what they said was an earlier version of the article…