- 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… - 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… - CaseCase Closed
Request by organisation to retract article and publish expression of concern
A group of unspecified members of an organisation have written an expression of concern (letter via email) to the editors wherein they request that an article previously published in the journal be retracted since they believe it is biased and inaccurate about regulation details within the organisation. They are further requesting that their letter be published in the journal. The editor… - CaseCase Closed
Attempt to supress legitimate scientific results
The journal is operated by institute A, and the editor is an employee of institute A. A manuscript was submitted late in 2014 by authors from institute B, a similar type of organisation in the same country. The manuscript was reviewed by two referees who both recommended publication following minor revision. One of the reviewers noted that the abstract contained a vague statement related to the… - Research
What instructions and guidance do journals provide to their reviewers to assess submitted manuscripts? : A survey with particular emphasis on the use of reporting guidelines 2010
The project aims to survey journals’ instructions to reviewers of submitted manuscripts. The study will summarise if and how journals use reporting guidelines in the peer review process, and will explore how effective the editors have found reporting guidelines in improving manuscript quality. The survey will provide an indication of the degree to which reporting guidelines are currently… - Seminars and webinars
Asia=Pacific Seminar 2011: Publication ethics as a manifestation of professional ethics
…Download presentation: Publication ethics as a manifestation of professional ethics (PDF, 1155KB)… - Discussion documents
COPE Forum 9 December 2014: Publication ethics issues in the social sciences
Background The history of research ethics in general and publication ethics more specifically was initially and primarily grounded in the biomedical sciences. As concern over issues of animal care, human participant protection and research integrity developed throughout the latter part of the 20th century, some members of the Social Sciences and Humanities communities ra… - CaseCase Closed
Image manipulation as a general practice
As managing editor, I view all manuscripts before they are assigned to an editor. Within a 4 week period, I have detected five manuscripts where photographs of either gels or plant materials were used twice or three times in the same manuscript. These manuscripts were immediately rejected. However, we are not convinced that these are cases of deliberate misleading of the scientific commu… - Discussion documents
COPE Forum 4 March 2014: Issues related to papers submitted to “discussion” journals
Authors in any subject area have always had a number of potential publications to choose from when they decide that they want to publish their research. As well as subscription journals to pick from, the increasing number of Open Access models has meant that the choices for authors are expanding all the time. A new type of publication that has arisen from the OA movement is the European Geoscie…