- News
Letter from the COPE Chair: April 2022
…href="/policies/submitting-guest-editorial-or-opinion-piece-cope">submissions from our members to foster communications about issues of interest to you. In May, COPE has several events. COPE will be hosting a virtual Seminar to introduce membership for universities and research institutes. The keynote will be given by Professor John B Thompson, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge and author of… - Case
Double plagiarism
A researcher has written to us to point out that a paper published in a German journal in 1993 was put together almost verbatim from articles published in the BMJ in 1989 and the New England Journal of Medicine in 1992. About three quarters of the material in the article in the German paper comes from these two journals. It may be that the data are original but it seems unlikely. What should… - Case
Patients with vitiligo treated with anti-fungal drugs by a general practitioner
A letter was submitted for publication in which a general practitioner described how he treated patients with vitiligo “simultaneously with an anti-fungal and anti-bacterial medicament over a prolonged period.”He has done this because:“As is now known,a fungus resembles the human being genetically and there is a possibility that a fungus can hide in the melanocyte (analogically as is being… - Case
Author cannot be located
…on multiple occasions, but no response was received. The manuscript is ready to be published, but the journal is unable to locate one of the authors of the manuscript to sign the publication form. If a coauthor cannot be located to sign the publication forms, it seems they cannot affirm that they accept the responsibilities as well as the rights of authorship. Question for COPE… - News
Letter from the COPE co-Chairs: January 2019
…px; height: 125px; margin-left: 3px; margin-right: 3px; float: left;" /> Read January 2019 COPE Digest newsletter and use the COPE Audit Tool, read a case discussion on citation manipulation, get dates in the diary for COPE events in 2019, and keep… COPE webinar: Current Issues in Peer Review
…CURRENT ISSUES IN PEER REVIEW Thursday 14 September 2017, 4-5pm BST (British Summer Time) ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Register for peer…- News
Case Discussion: Editor and reviewers requiring authors to cite their own work
…discussion document which will be ready, on our website, early this year. Nancy Chescheir on behalf of the COPE Education Subcommittee Read January 2019 COPE Digest newsletter and use the COPE… - News
COPE Webinar: Current Issues in Peer Review, Thursday 14 September 4-5pm (BST)
As part of this year's Peer Review Week we're running a webinar: Current Issues in Peer Review. We will be discussing the topical issues in peer review that are faced by COPE members and have three guest speakers who will present their views, given their experience in this area. Read more… - Event
COPE 25th anniversary seminar, 2022
Our 2022 COPE Seminar was a celebration of 25 years of COPE, as we launched University and Research Institute Membership. The theme of the seminar is “Creating a culture of publication integrity together” and begins with a keynote address by John B Thompson, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge, followed by a panel discussion on the importance of a partnership between… - News
In the news: May & June 2022
…risking research integrity? Covid-19 Public health restrictions in the jurisdiction of where research is performed during the pandemic should be observed and editorial processes should affirm this. Peer review processes A historian of… - Event
EASE Conference
A stimulating programme of plenary lectures (including Bernd Pulverer, EMBO Press, María del Carmen Ruíz Alcocer, AMERBAC, and Mark Patterson, eLife) and parallel sessions covering a range of topics on editing and managing journals, sex and… - Case
Previous publication cannot be verified
…publication policies, but it appears the publications department was disbanded and all employees have left. The publisher has also tried to contact the authors of the paper published in their journal, but their email addresses bounce back. Question for COPE Council What would be the appropriate course of action here? The publisher has been unable to verify if the original paper… - News
Case discussion: Editing peer review comments
…href="https://publicationethics.org/events/cope-forum-friday-6-march-2020">COPE Forum on 6 March. With this in mind, we highlight two cases from the COPE archive: Case 97-08 likely predated the online editorial management systems that allow confidential comments for the editor to be separated from their comments for the author. The submitter of the case… - Case
Should we have had author consent for a randomised controlled trial of a peer review?
…Conclusion A notice should be added to the Instructions to Authors, to the effect that from time to time their papers may be used in trials of peer review and that this may slightly delay the processing time. In addition, the letter acknowledging receipt of the article might also contain notice (but with a light touch). In both cases, the authors can be given the opportunity to opt out.… - Case
Failing to get consent from an ethics committee
This case was described to me by an author who is about to submit a paper. He has discovered that a member of his team has produced a lot of fraudulent data for other studies, and has forged consent from ethics committees. This researcher has been reported to the GMC and his case is pending. The problem with the paper about to be submitted to us is that the fraudulent researcher falsely… - Event
7th World Conference on Research Integrity
…is the first time this conference will be held in Africa, to ensure participation from African delegates. The conference will take place in person, or you can join via live streaming, from 29 May – 1 June 2022. WCRI will monitor the developments closely and will follow all recommendations of WHO and the South African health authorities. The conference will be relevant to Research… - Case
Attempted redundant publication?
…further detail only provided here.” The authors did reference their previous paper in their introduction to their present paper, but did not make clear that there was substantial overlap with the previously published paper and did not send us a copy. I have asked the authors for their comments. Assuming that the two papers do turn out to be substantially the same, should we contemplate some… - Case
The fraudulent letter
Letters to the editor are difficult to authenticate. The journal should publish a retraction and highlight this with an editorial. The dean should be notified and advised to write to every student pointing out this breach of ethics.…