COPE Flowcharts
COPE flowcharts offer a step by step process, for practical use on handling different aspects of publication ethics issues.
Allegations of misconduct
- Reviewer suspected to have appropriated an author’s ideas or data
- Responding to whistleblowers when concerns are raised directly
- Responding to whistleblowers when concerns are raised via social media
Authorship and contributorship
- Changes in authorship: Addition of extra author – before publication
- Changes in authorship: Removal of author – before publication
- Changes in authorship: Addition of extra author – after publication
- Changes in authorship: Removal of author – after publication
- Ghost, guest, or gift authorship in a submitted manuscript
- How to recognise potential authorship problems updated 2023
Conflicts of interest/Competing interests
- Undisclosed conflict of interest in a submitted manuscript
- Undisclosed conflict of interest in a published article, updated 2021
Data and reproducibility
- Fabricated data in a submitted manuscript
- Fabricated data in a published article
- Image manipulation in a published article
- Authorship and contributorship of published data: dealing with concerns new 2023
- Authorship and contributorship of unpublished data: dealing with concerns new 2023
- Concerns about risk in unpublished data new 2023
- Concerns about risk in published data new 2023
- Scientific rigour of unpublished data: dealing with concerns new 2023
- Scientific rigour of published data: dealing with concerns new 2023
- Legal and regulatory restrictions of unpublished data: dealing with concerns new 2023
- Legal and regulatory restrictions of published data: dealing with concerns new 2023
Ethical oversight
Intellectual property
Journal management
- General approach to publication ethics for the editorial office updated 2022
- Systematic manipulation of the publication process, updated 2022
- Addressing concerns about systematic manipulation of the publication process new 2023
Peer review processes
- What to consider when asked to peer review a manuscript
- Peer review manipulation suspected during the peer review process
- Peer review manipulation suspected after publication
- How to recognise potential manipulation of the peer review process
Post-publication discussions
- Handing post-publication critiques, new 2021
- Redundant (duplicate) publication in a submitted manuscript
- Redundant (duplicate) publication in a published article
COPE flowcharts in various languages
Arabic | Chinese | Croatian | French | Italian | Japanese | Persian | Polish | Spanish | Turkish
About this resource
Full page history
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5 March 2024
Edits
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28 April 2021
Edited
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14 April 2021
Version 2 of the All Flowcharts PDF added, including updated flowchart design.
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13 April 2021
small edit