- CaseCase Closed
An ambiguous plagiarism case
A paper was published in journal A. The plagiarism check tool did not show any similarity during the peer review process. Some time after publication of the paper, the editor-in-chief was contacted by an author who had published a paper in journal B. They claimed that the paper published in journal A was plagiarised from their MSc research project thesis and asked journal A to ret… - CaseOn-going
Salami slicing/duplicate publication
An article with four authors was published in journal A. The same article with a slight change in the title and one additional author, was published three months later in journal B. The authors had submitted the article to both journals at the same time. The number of study subjects in the two articles were the same, with a very slight difference in the wordings of the objective o… - CaseCase Closed
Request to remove author from submitted manuscript due to academic misconduct
Regarding a submitted (but not yet accepted) paper from a scientific collaboration, one of the authors has asked whether an instance of academic misconduct or - for that matter - any non-scientific but rather unsavoury personal facts or accusations (e.g. a penal or civil proceedings) can be considered as a valid ground for requesting that the journal remove an author from the paper, as per the… - Seminars and webinars
Universiti Malaysia Seminar: Authorship
July 2022 Dr Trevor Lane, COPE Council member, was invited by the Faculty of Science and Natural Resources of the Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Malaysia, to give an online seminar about authorship issues. Titled “Publication Ethics and Authorship Dispute”, the hour-long event was targeted at university researchers aiming to publish their research in peer-reviewed journals,… - Research
Paper mills research
COPE and STM undertook a study with Maverick Publishing Services in June 2022, using data from publishers, to understand the scale of the problem of paper mills. The study also involved interviewing stakeholders - research investigators, publishers, and Retraction Watch. All stakeholders believe that the issue of paper mills is a real threat to the integrity of the scholarly record. Col… - CaseCase Closed
Academic freedom
A final year student, and two other researchers in law, all from the same university, undertook research into a recent court judgment on the rules in relation to civil servants making public comments. Based on this research, a manuscript was drafted to be submitted to a double anonymised peer reviewed journal. The manuscript is highly critical of the judgment’s reasoning and impact. All three a… - CaseCase Closed
Suspicious responses to authorship change requests
A journal received a request for multiple changes to the authorship list after the manuscript was accepted. Originally, there were five co-authors. After acceptance, the journal received the following requests from author A, the corresponding author and co-first author: remove one of the co-authors (author D), add a new co-author (author E), reorder the list of authors, and change the designate… - CaseOn-going
Change of corresponding author after manuscript published online
On submission of a manuscript to a journal, one of the authors was indicated as the corresponding author. During the submission, review, and revision process, and also through copyediting and proofreading, the corresponding author responded to all emails, signed the publishing agreements, and was generally available. At this time, the authors of the manuscript did not mention a possible change… - CaseCase Closed
Authorship dispute involving a commercial institution
A paper was published in a journal. After publication, an associate editor of the journal said that they and other colleagues should have been authors on the paper. They cited a patent they helped write that overlapped with the article as proof that they should be authors on the paper. The authors of the paper refuse to add the associate editor and colleagues as authors. Unfortuna… - CaseOn-going
Request to remove an author post-publication
A paper was submitted to a journal by authors A and B. The paper was accepted and then published in the journal. Several months after final publication, author A contacted the journal asking for their name and their biography to be removed from the article. Author A stated that they wished to distance themselves from the research. Author B also contacted the journal separately to… - CaseOn-going
Deceased author and author delaying publication
The journal accepted a manuscript for publication with two authors. One of the authors died before signing the copyright. This manuscript is now ready for galley proof approval from the surviving author. Proofs were sent to the surviving author and the author who died as normal because the production editor assigned to this manuscript did not know that one of the authors had died. After… - CaseCase Closed
Authorship of a commentary
An associate editor invited a commentary to be written by one of the peer reviewers. When the commentary was submitted, the associate editor was a co-author. There could be the appearance of a conflict in the decision to accept the article on which the commentary was based if the associate editor is an author on the commentary. Question for the Forum - CaseOn-going
Duplicate submission and request for withdrawal
A paper was submitted to journal A and received a ‘revision’ decision. At some point following this decision, the authors emailed the journal to request withdrawal, citing inconsistencies in their data and subsequent conclusions. A search of the literature showed that the same paper (with the same authors) was published in journal B the day before the withdrawal request. Clearly, the authors wa… - Seminars and webinars
Publication ethics in an open world
…4th World STM Journal Forum: Publication ethics Dan Kulp, COPE Chair, was invited to speak at the 4th World STM Journal Forum organised by the Chinese Association of Science & Technology (CAST), July 2021. Dan spoke about the some of the current issues around publication ethics in the industry such as: authorship issues; fabrication, falsification, and plagiarism; image mani… - Seminars and webinars
Seminar 2021: Ethical authorship versus fraudulent authorship
In this webinar, the speakers cover ways of promoting ethical authorship and preventing fraudulent authorship. The CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) system, authorship definitions and policies, and relevant operating procedures and education are reviewed from institutional and publishing perspectives. This session is one of - 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. - Seminars and webinars
Seminar 2021: Authorship for sale
…How do we deal with the growing problem of paper mills? The webinar panelists discussed the prevalence of paper mills, the systematic manipulation of the publication process by individuals or organised groups to guarantee publication, often through sale of authorship or manipulating article acceptance. This session is one of - 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 a… - Forum discussion topics
Coordinating multi-journal complaints
June 2021 When and how to involve multiple journals and publishers in dealing with complaints from whistleblowers Complaints received from whistleblowers can develop into large investigations with multiple journals, editors, and publishers involved. Such complaints may involve many articles from a single author group or multiple author… - Forum discussion topics
Ethical considerations around book publishing
March 2021 Periodically, COPE gets requests for the development of discussion documents, guidance and flowcharts on publication ethics issues related to book publishing. Many of our members publish both journals and books, and a number of these members reference COPE guidance on journal publishing and ethics as providing useful information on p…