- 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… - Discussion documents
COPE Forum 5 November 2018: Predatory Publishing
Predatory publishing is generally defined as for-profit open access journal publication of scholarly articles without the benefit of peer review by experts in the field or the usual editorial oversight of the journals in question. The journals have no standards and no quality control and frequently publish within a very brief period of time while claiming that articles are peer-reviewed. There… - CaseOn-going
Editor manipulation of impact factor
An editor in chief of a major medical journal in a specialty field is also an author. The editor submits a manuscript to a competing journal in the same field. The manuscript receives moderately favourable reviews and the authors are invited to respond to the reviewer input and submit a revised manuscript. In the communication from that journal's editor in chief, the authors are asked to cite a… - Translated resources
Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (Spanish)
Principios de Transparencia y Mejores Prácticas en Publicaciones Académicas Introducción El Committee on Publication Ethics (Comité de Ética para Publicaciones (COPE)), el Directory of Open Access Journals (Directorio de Revistas de Acceso Abierto (DOAJ)), la Open Access Schol… - Translated resources
Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (Portuguese)
Princípios de Transparência e Boas Práticas em Publicações Acadêmicas Introdução O Committee on Publication Ethics (Comitê de Ética em Publicações-COPE), o Directory of Open Access Journals (Diretório de Revistas de Acesso Aberto-DOAJ), a Open Access Scholarly Publishers Assoc… - Discussion documents
COPE Forum 30 April 2018: Preprints: continuing the conversation
Preprint platforms have been common in physics and mathematics but the preprint landscape is changing rapidly with new platforms emerging across various disciplines. This raises opportunities for discussion across communities and for all those involved: preprint platforms, journals, authors, funders and institutions. COPE has facilitated this discussion previously via an earlier forum di… - 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… - Discussion documents
Preprints
Version 1: March 2018 Background/Context A preprint is a scholarly manuscript posted by the author(s) in an openly accessible platform, usually before or in parallel with the peer review process. While the sharing of manuscripts via preprint platforms has been common in some disciplines (such as physics and mathematics) for many years, uptake in other dis… - CaseCase Closed
Pre-publication in a discussion paper series
A submission in the economics field to an interdisciplinary social science journal was accepted, following full external review. Subsequently, the publisher wrote to the author stating that during editorial checks, it had come to their attention that a full manuscript of a paper with the same name was available in a discussion paper series and kindly asked that this version be removed from the… - CaseCase Closed
Unethical withdrawal after acceptance to maximize the 'impact factor'?
We are a publisher with a portfolio of about 25 journals, with journal X being the flagship journal. Journal X has a high impact factor. We also publish a range of other, newer journals, some of which are ranked highly but most have no impact factor. An author submitted a manuscript to journal Y where it underwent peer review and was accepted after revisions. After acceptance, the autho… - Discussion documents
COPE Forum 24 July 2017: Preprints: what are the issues?
Preprints and working papers have been posted and shared for many years. They report research results that have not undergone peer review, although in many cases the authors also submit to a journal (before, after or at the same time as making a preprint available). In the past 5 years, the number of preprint servers and preprints has expanded and new disciplines, notably biology and life scien… - Seminars and webinars
European Seminar 2017: Publication ethics, the last 20 years
For COPE's 20th Anniversary, the 2017 COPE European Seminar invited Liz Wager to look back at the last twenty years of publication ethics. … - Seminars and webinars
European Seminar 2017: COPE today and tomorrow
For the 2017 COPE European Seminar, co-chairs Geri Pearson and Chris Graf reflected on the COPE of today and the COPE of tomorrow. ' … - Seminars and webinars
European Seminar 2017: Arts, humanities, and social sciences. What do we need from COPE?
At the 2017 COPE European Seminar, Deborah Kahn, Publishing Director of Medicine and Open Access at Taylor & Francis presented her thoughts on what the arts, humanities and social sciences need from an organisation such as COPE. … - Seminars and webinars
European Seminar 2017: Publication and research integrity, a Wellcome perspective
At the 2017 COPE European Seminar, Robert Kiley from the Wellcome Trust presented Wellcome's perspective on publication and research integrity. The event was filmed, which you can watch below, and the slides are also available. - CaseCase Closed
Satire in scholarly publishing
An intentional satire of a randomised controlled trial was published in a journal. In addition to multiple overt clues that the article was fake in the text, the article ended with a clear and direct statement in the acknowledgments that it was satire. Investigators conducting a systematic review on the topic inadvertently included the satire article in their review as a legitimate manus… - CaseCase Closed
Author of rejected paper publicly names and criticises peer reviewer
The first author of a paper rejected by our journal publicly identified one of the four peer reviewers for the paper by name. She did this during a media interview conducted after the paper was published by another journal. The first author implied in that interview and subsequently on Twitter that the paper was rejected because of that person's review and also claimed the reviewer did not reve…