- Seminars and webinars
European Seminar 2014: Violation of publication ethics in manuscripts submitted to the biomedical journals
…Download poster: Violation of publication ethics in manuscripts submitted to the biomedical journals: analysis and perspectives (PDF 2740KB)… - Seminars and webinars
European Seminar 2014: Report on the seminar
…Download report on the COPE European Seminar by Mirjam Curno [PDF,418KB]… - Seminars and webinars
Prevention is better than the cure, so the saying goes. — Paul Taylor & Daniel Barr, Office for Research Ethics and Integrity at the University of Melbourne
…Download presentation: Prevention is better than the cure, so the saying goes [PDF,1000KB]… - Seminars and webinars
AsiaPacific Seminar 2011: Publication ethics as a manifestation of professional ethics
…Download presentation: Publication ethics as a manifestation of professional ethics (PDF, 1155KB)… - Seminars and webinars
Seminar 2015: Ethical peer review in a changing and challenging scholarly publication world
…Download presentation: Ethical peer review in a changing and challenging scholarly publication world [PDF, 998KB]… - CaseCase Closed
The ethics of self-experimentation
The author was the subject of his study. He depleted himself of a vital nutrient until he had overt clinical and biochemical signs of the deficiency. He monitored various biochemical parameters as he became more deficient and submitted two manuscripts presenting his results: one detailing the biochemical changes and one detailing the differences in results obtained from different commercially a… - CaseCase Closed
Institutional review board approval required?
We have a query regarding institutional review board (IRB) approval for a paper in production. The paper reports on a 2 year follow-up and cost-effectiveness evaluation for a treatment programme. A previously published paper reports on the original evaluation of the treatment programme. The authors have not obtained IRB approval for either body of research. The initial research wa… - Forum discussion topics
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
Institutional review board approval needed?
A graduate student submitted a paper to a journal and noted that in her country, unless the research is directly medical, institutional review board (IRB) approval is not required or completed. The journal has a policy of requiring IRB approval on any human subjects’ research. This study was looking at practitioners and their work with students having a particular diagnosis. The editor r… - CaseOn-going
Fraud or sloppiness in a submitted manuscript
In June 2014 we received a manuscript by four authors from a well known research institution. They described a randomized trial comparing a variation in a procedure with standard care. In total, 200 patients were randomized, 100 to each arm. As measured by an interview, patients undergoing the new procedure were statistically significantly more content than those in the control arm. This manusc… - Forum discussion topics
COPE Forum 8 July 2014: ethical review
…Fair play for “researchers”: Can editors and regulators develop a common approach to the need (or lack of need) for ethical review? There are a number of legitimate and valuable tools for gaining information and evidence for scientific advance and improving health care. These include research, evaluation, audit, and others. There is a real danger that UK “researchers” using tools other… - Forum discussion topics
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… - CaseOn-going
Ethical concerns about a study involving human subjects
A manuscript was submitted to our journal describing a study of a new drug. The manuscript had only one author who gave their affiliation as a company that we can find no record of online. It describes a study in which they appear to have developed a new drug, carried out a toxicology study in mice and then, because no adverse effects were seen, tested it on one patient and five healthy volunte… - CaseCase Closed
Findings of a published trial called into question by a subsequent audit of trial conduct
In 2008, our journal published a phase 2 randomised controlled trial of a new medicine. In 2011, the regulatory authority in the country where the study was performed decided to undertake routine monitoring of completed studies and this trial was selected for random inspection. The author informed the journal of the inspection and provided a translation of the report (independently verified as… - CaseOn-going
Ethical concerns and the validity of documentation supplied by the authors
We became concerned that not all of the co-authors were aware of a research paper submitted to our journal due to the difficulty receiving responses from the email addresses that had been supplied and their nature, given that the authors all worked in a hospital/academic institution. Despite repeated requests and attempts we remained dissatisfied with the responses and did not feel certain that… - CaseCase Closed
Inadequate assurance of human research ethics for a questionnaire
A questionnaire was distributed to knowledge workers in an organisation to investigate the following hypotheses: — H1.There is a positive and significant relationship between ethics and organizational performance.— H2. There is a positive and significant relationship between ethics and intellectual capital.— H3. There is a positive and significant relationship between intelle… - CaseCase Closed
Fraudulent data presented in a manuscript
Author A submitted a trial comparing the safety and feasibility of two delivery techniques in patients. The trial, which was done at author A’s institution, was assessed by inhouse editors, who decided to send it out for peer review. During the peer review process, some reviewers pointed out that “this work seems premature, experimental and hard to believe”, and also expressed suspicion… - CaseOn-going
Possible violation of the Helsinki Declaration on Scientific Research with Humans
A manuscript underwent peer review and the resulting reviewer comments raised grave concerns about the ethical legitimacy of the study.The reviewer: questioned the authors’ impartiality, suggesting that there was an undeclared conflict of interest; raised serious concerns about the extent to which participants gave informed consent; strongly doubted that the… - CaseOn-going
Unethical private practice
This single author manuscript describes the treatment of 300 women with psychological problems. The women were randomised to either therapy or pharmacological intervention, and this study reports the relative effectiveness of these strategies. At submission, the manuscript did not contain any mention of ethics approval, consent or trial registration. When the author was queried on these… - CaseOn-going
Authorship dispute
A manuscript was published by journal X and submitted by author A (last author). Author B claims that fraud occurred in relation to authorship for the following reasons. (1) Author A did not take part in producing the data for the paper and has never been a co-author on any version of the manuscript.(2) A paper with very similar content ,which was part of the PhD thesis of author C…