- CaseCase Closed
Revoked parental consent
Our journal publishes case reports describing the evaluation, diagnosis and treatment of unusual cases. Parents must provide written informed consent prior to manuscript submission. No cases are presented with unique identifiers and each is anonymised as much as possible. A manuscript was submitted with written consent that was accepted for publication and assigned to an issue. Just… - CaseOn-going
Editor as author of a paper
The Forum agreed this was a failure of journal processes and the editor in chief must take responsibility for this. The change was not detected but there should be processes in place when any change in the authorship of a paper is noted. Authors should be required to clearly state when any changes in authorship are made after the initial submission, and the journal needs to ensure it tightens… - CaseCase Closed
Inadequate assurance of human research ethics for a questionnaire
…possibilities of harm were the 160 individuals surveyed warned about them? How? Were they told what the data would be used for? What were they told? When you have amended the paper to give some indication and can supply a (translated) consent form, please visit the instructions to authors to complete your submission". In response to these queries the following reply was received. "We have set a cover… - CaseOn-going
Concerns about the reliability of findings following re-analysis of a dataset from a published article
In the light of the advice provided by the COPE Forum, the editor followed-up with the reader and he has agreed to submit his re-analysis for publication. The editor is awaiting the submission of the piece describing the re-analysis.… - Case
Retract, correct, or both?
…this as a new submission if/when it is submitted. In the meantime, the journal has adopted the suggested policy of emailing all of the authors, and not just the corresponding author, when the journal is dealing with any manuscript.… - CaseCase Closed
Inadequate reporting of a trial, despite earlier rejection from a different journal
…journal 2 the reviews we still have? • In principle, could we have shared the supplementary files and original submission (although they are no longer available)?… - Case
Self plagiarism
…submission”. The important issue is not disclosure, but that publication of such work would be redundant. The previously published material remains in the public domain and is generally subject to copyright. Discussion of the work is, of course, acceptable, but not replication of whole sentences or paragraphs. No further action is contemplated, but we strongly suggested that they reconsider their policy in… - Case
The ethics of using privileged information
A paper published in one of our journals (paper A) provoked the submission of a correspondence article claiming that a minor conclusion of the paper was a misinterpretation and erroneous. The point in contention was a question of zoomorphology and our paper’s conclusions were based on analysis using a non-invasive technique while the rebuttal relied on more traditional techniques. We are… - CaseCase Closed
Dispute between two authors
…author A, which were somewhat intemperate in tone (including accusations of falsification, fabrication, duplication and violation of scientific integrity). Author C responded that the accusations raised by author A were absurd and recommended that the journal ignore them. Author C provided some publications supporting his views. Question(s) for the COPE Forum • Currently, the… - CaseCase Closed
Attempt to supress legitimate scientific results
…manger stated that the original manuscript had been approved for submission by institute B but the revised manuscript had not, and asked the editor to remove the paper from the journal’s website immediately. The editor said that this was not possible and further explained that if institute B wanted the paper retracted then they would need to provide a written justification. Within an hour, the… - CaseCase Closed
Post-publication correction because of lack of consent
…article. The journal should examine how this happened in terms of the journal’s own policies and procedures. The journal should consider reviewing their instructions to reviewers so that in the future ethical aspects are looked at with more diligence. In-house procedures could also be considered in order for research ethics to be properly assessed during the early phases of submission. The journal… - CaseCase Closed
Data source for study of questionable integrity and provenance
…several retractions involving some or all of the same authors. If innocent, the authors could readily give a satisfactory explanation. Other factors to consider in deciding how to proceed include whether a false declaration has been made on submission (eg, some journals ask all authors to confirm they had full access to all the data) as well as possible salami slicing. … - 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… - Case
Is it unethical to reject unregistered (or late-registered) trials?
We would like other editors’ opinions as to whether adhering to the journal’s policy on trial registration may contribute towards the non-publication of trial results (and thus bias in the literature). All of our journals have the same policy on trial registration—for studies started before July 2005, we permit retrospective registration (providing it was done before submission) but for… - Case
Alleged unauthorized use of data and possible dual publication
During review of a manuscript submitted to our journal, a dispute arose over some of the data used in the database that was described in the submitted paper. The authors listed several preferred reviewers and also one non-preferred reviewer (without giving reasons). The journal’s submission site states that the editors will consider the authors’ preferred suggestions but are under no… - Forum discussion topics
Artificial intelligence (AI) and fake papers
…pre-peer review checks (e.g., language quality, confirming that a submission is in scope for the journal) or as part of peer review (e.g., identifying reviewers, checking for data or image manipulation). See COPE’s discussion document on AI in decision making and COPE’s seminar on - Case
Retraction or correction?
…needed to compare the results with those reported in the other published paper. Therefore, they compared the results using direct quotation on the column. After the editors reviewed the submitted article it was determined that the "missed" data were not in their original submission. The authors responded that as they mentioned before, only a column was missed in the manuscript and that the… - CaseCase Closed
Potentially fake academic affiliation
…://publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines/sharing-information-among-editors-chief-regarding-possible-misconduct">Sharing of Information Among Editors-in-Chief Regarding Possible Misconduct. This states that 'sharing of information concerning a specific journal submission with individuals who are outside the journal’s review process is inimical to the principles of confidentiality...there is a concern that… - CaseCase Closed
Authorship dispute unsatisfactorily resolved by institution
…contributed to the writing of the text. The claimant provided evidence of this in the form of screenshots of a submission confirmation email and subsequent rejection email from another journal for a manuscript with a similar title, a Word document labelled as the claimant’s PhD thesis and details of overlap with the published paper, and a screenshot of an email reported to have been sent by the claimant to… - CaseCase Closed
Request by organisation to retract article and publish expression of concern
…writing standardsNote: not all members of the organisation were aware that the letter was sent (one of the editors is a member of this organisation), and the author of the article and certain members of this organisation have a history of disagreeing on previous articles that the author has published in other journals on the same topic (furthermore, the author once had a submission accepted at…