- CaseCase Closed
Managing an editor’s undisclosed conflict of interest in a published article
An opinion piece on a polarising political and technological topic was published. A discussion ensued on social media, and shortly after, the publisher received a formal complaint stating that the editor-in-chief of the journal, who had managed the peer review process for the manuscript, had a conflict of interest and should not have made the final acceptance decision. When the publishing team… - CaseCase Closed
Author creates bogus email accounts for proposed reviewers
The Forum agreed that this was a serious form of misconduct and may even be criminal, as the author was impersonating the reviewers. The advice was to contact the author’s institution and inform them of the situation, explaining the author’s inappropriate behaviour. Other advice was to look at the peer review of previous submissions/publications from this author in case they also involved… - 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. … - CaseCase Closed
Review of a book written by an editor of a journal
Two scholars and professional colleagues, A and B, serve as co-editors of a peer-reviewed international journal. Editor A, who recently had a book published, has requested that editor B solicit a review of the book from a scholar in the field. Editor A would like this review to be published in the journal that they edit together. Editor B is concerned that this situation would put him in… - Discussion documents
Guest edited collections best practice
… Key points Journals and publishers should be aware that collections can expose journals to greater risks in terms of unethical behaviour and peer review manipulation that should be carefully considered before the start of these… - CaseOn-going
Author anonymity at the final proofreading stages
A newly relaunched open access, peer reviewed journal operates a double blind peer-review system. At all stages of the review, until the decision to accept has been taken, neither the author nor the reviewer can identify the other. The journal always uses at least two reviewers, who are also unaware of the identity of each other. After the author has been told that the article is… - 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… - CaseCase Closed
More than a breach of confidentiality?
A journal received two manuscripts on the same topic in short succession.Manuscript A was rejected after peer review; manuscript B, submitted a few months later, was accepted after peer review. When manuscript B was published, author X contacted the journal to express concern about similarities between both papers and the fact that the first had been rejected and the second accepted. The… - Translated resources
Qué considerar al ser invitado a hacer una revisión por pares de un manuscrito
Qué considerar al ser invitado a hacer una revisión por pares de un manuscrito For the latest version (English language) of this guidance visit https://doi.org/10.24318/cope.2019.2.17 Related resources - CaseOn-going
Unauthorised reviewer challenges
A paper submitted to a journal with a single anonymous peer review policy was assigned to a prospective reviewer, who agreed to undertake the review. The reviewer then sent an email addressed to a number of different research group and institutional mailing lists calling for volunteers to review the paper. The reviewer attached the PDF of the paper, which had been downloaded from the… - Seminars and webinars
North American Seminar 2019: Women also know history
Karin Wulf, Professor of History and well-known “Chef” in the Scholarly Kitchen introduced us to the terms “manels” and “whanels” (all male panels and all white panels) and provided some suggestions to help identify a more diverse group of experts from which to draw authors, reviewers, editorial board… - Seminars and webinars
European Seminar 2019: Exploring Publication Ethics Issues in the Arts, Humanities, and Social Sciences
…review had been particularly critical. 5) Half of respondents have experienced self-plagiarism, with 22% saying this arose frequently. Again, this was especially widespread in Business, Finance and Economics (65% of editors working in these fields). 6) In the case of fraudulent submissions, these appeared to come up infrequently, though nearly 20% of… - Seminars and webinars
European Seminar 2013: Posters
…Poster: Experiences of unethical practices in a leading Pakistani biomedical journal [PDF 22KB] - Case
Palestinian refugee conditions
A journal received a simple, cross-sectional survey of Palestinian refugees. The author was a Palestinian, employed by a charity and undertaking research based at a university overseas. The study contained new data and within the constraints of a cross-sectional survey seemed methodologically sound. The paper was sent to two peer reviewers with expertise in the area, experience in… - CaseCase Closed
Ethical issues of responding to government agency request for information
A journal published several articles, reviewed by reviewers recommended by the author, that were identified as suspect. After a thorough investigation, the journal determined that almost all of the peer review responses for these articles were fabricated - the result of identity misappropriation and fraud. The journal was subsequently contacted by two government agencies of the… - Case
The double review
An author submitted a review to journal A in February 1997. It was accepted for publication in November, after peer review. The same author submitted a review on a similar topic—sufficiently similar that there was substantial overlap of content—to journal B in September 1997. Journal B accepted it in January 1998, after peer review. Neither journal editor knew of the parallel paper. - CaseCase Closed
Editor and reviewers requiring authors to cite their own work
…editor asked for his own papers to be cited more than 20 times and never personally requested citation of papers that were not his own. The four regular reviewers requested citation of the handling editor’s work much more frequently than they requested citation of papers he had not authored, and most of the citations they requested that were not the handling editor’s were of papers they themselves had… - CaseOn-going
Reviewer citation manipulation
This is a general scenario which has been observed in increasing numbers at our journal. We are finding that some reviewers provide a referee’s report which include a request to cite a number of papers, which on closer inspection are all authored by the referee. We would like to hear whether Forum participants have any policies or procedures for reviewers who are clearly manipulating… - CaseCase Closed
Institutional review board approval needed?
The Forum noted that institutional review board approval was the topic for discussion at the previous COPE Forum on 8 July 2014. A summary of the discussion and comments can be found on the COPE website (http://publicationethics.org/files/u661/Foruum_Discussion_Summary_Fair%20… - CaseCase Closed
Temporary exception to double anonymised review policy
…conflicts of interest in reviewing the article. Any paused articles with a decision should be treated in the same way. When the papers are published the journal should consider including a notice stating that they have been through a single anonymised peer review.…