- CaseOn-going
A case of salami slicing
…methods of the journal to filter out possible cases of plagiarism and salami slicing. The editor discussed the case (without revealing any of the author's details) with editors of related journals who said that they also experienced similar cases and expressed the need for efforts to create awareness to avoid publication misconduct. The editor acknowledges the guidance from the COPE website in… - CaseOn-going
Same cohort - same blood samples - multiple tests
This is a hypothetical situation based on a real-life experience. A set of authors recruited the same patient cohort, collected data with two questionnaires, took one blood sample, but tests were done by two research students for two pathogens, and the results were presented separately in two theses. Subsequently, they sent different papers to two journals. No plagiarism has been… - CaseCase Closed
Unusually frequent submission of articles by a single author
A sixth year medical student, with expected year of graduation of 2013 (Mr X), submitted 29 original articles and 17 letters to the editor in the period February 2012 to October 2012 to our journal. This amounted to an average of five submissions per month. Mr X is an author and corresponding author in every article. Of these, he is the first author of eight original research articles and 12 le… - CaseCase Closed
Request to remove author from submitted manuscript due to academic misconduct
…initial steps of the current COPE flowchart for removing an author before publication. This flowchart only refers back to more strict instances of scientific fraud or misconduct such as plagiarism or ghost/gift writing, so that it is not clear whether it would be even fair to initiate… - CaseCase Closed
Two cases of double submission
Journal A is dealing with two separate cases of double submission: Case 1: Manuscript X was submitted to the journal. Two rounds of revision were suggested by the editor in charge, following comments by the referee, and an amended version was submitted. Following routine plagiarism detection checking, the editorial team found that a substantial part of the manuscript was similar to… - CaseOn-going
Conflicts of interest between authors and editors
…the managing editor and academic editor make initial checks on all submissions. The managing editor conducts a check for plagiarism and reviews the manuscript for suitability according to journal scope and appropriate format. If they pass this initial check manuscripts are assigned to an academic editor after disclosing any conflicts of interest (CoI) (there is a checklist for this as part of the…